Desert Sands
by DecidedlyDeranged
Summary: Kyouri is a young girl who's always known she was slightly different from her school mates. But, it's not until the Hokage enrolls her into the Ninja Academy that she realises how much danger she's in. Will she become a ninja in time to save her family?
1. For Better or For Worse

You were standing under a tree, talking to your friends when you first saw them; two ninja's coming towards you, they were wearing the normal chunin uniform and both looked like they were around their early 20's.

They reached you within a couple of seconds; you could never understand how they moved so fast, stopping abruptly in front of you & your group of friends,

'The hokage wishes to see you immediately' one said, he had light brown hair

'Why?' was all you asked

'He didn't say, just that it was urgent'

'Fine' you replied, 'I'm guessing he's waiting for me in the main building?'

'Yeh, we shall escort you there'

'Sure, whatever' you replied sighing, 'I'll see you guys later, kay?' you turned to face your classmates

'What does he want?'

'How am I supposed to know?' you asked rhetorically

'Well, tell us as soon as you know'

'Will do' you replied turning round to face the couple of chunin waiting for you. You followed them, at a _normal_ human pace, back to the hokage. You arrived outside the door and knocked,

'Come in' a voice said from within, you twisted the handle and stepped into the room, your father was standing next to the hokage, you narrowed your eyes & quickly surveyed the rest of the room to check there was no-one else, your head snapped back when the hokage began to speak

'Good, your instinct to check a room when you came in will come in handy for you'

'Huh?' you questioned, confused.

'I am sorry, but your father has requested that I enrol you in the academy to train as a ninja, so you would be able to protect them & yourself should the need arise'

You just stared at him, shocked, why would your father chose you? Why not your brother? Sure you were older, but he was by far healthier & fitter. You guessed at the reason, right from the beginning of your memory you had always had an instinct to fight, you just seemed to be naturally good at it, but with training your brother could easily overtake your level. That meant only one thing then, something bad was coming, and soon. Otherwise he would have chosen your brother.

'Who is it?' you asked when you finally lifted your head up, you were looking at your father but the hokage replied

'Ah, She's smart your girl'

'Hn,' was all your father said to this

'We think the akatsuki have got their eyes on you because of your abilities'

Your eyes widened at his words and flicked to your father, he showed no signs of having heard anything. Of course you knew what the Hokage was talking about; when you concentrated you could read other people's emotions & apparently when you had been younger you had seemed control the actions of other people occasionally, but no-one ever talked about it. Whenever you'd tried to broach the subject with your Dad, he'd promptly reminded you that some things "we don't talk about".

'But I was told that was the reason I wasn't enrolled in the academy in the first place!' you protested

'Yes, you were stopped, but only because we thought that if you were not able to fight then you would be useless to evil ninja organisations such as the akatsuki, but, your skills seemed to have developed by themselves, of course not to the level of a ninja's but you'd be able to fend off an attack from someone who hadn't been trained, & now that you have the basic skills, the akatsuki leader has decided they could train you further'

'What if I just refuse to join them?'

'Then your family will be killed'

'What? Why!' you demanded

'As a means to persuade you to join them'

'That's supposed to make me join? Why would I join up with the people who killed my family?'

'Try telling them that'

'Fine, Whatever, I'll join your stupid ninja academy! But don't expect me to be any good, I've seen what those guys can do, I can't do anything like that' you warned

'Not at the moment at least, but you show great potential & you will be personally tutored by your sensei once you have been put into a group'

'What! I'm going to be put into a group with a load of actual ninjas?'

'Not a big group, there will be two or three other ninjas in your team, and soon you will be an actual ninja as well. I myself will teach you the move you will have to perform to graduate into a genin'

'What? When?'

'Now'

'What! I can't learn a move right now'

'Why not? The earlier you start training, the better. I'll also give you a list of exercises you'll have to do every night if you're to get up to the level of the rest of the people in your class.'

'Whatever, just show we the stupid move'

'As you wish,' he paused, turning to your father before continuing, 'You may leave now.' your father nodded his head in agreement and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

'Ok, watch me first, then I'll tell you how it's done & you'll have a go, but don't worry, you won't get it first time, no-one does. Okay, Ready?' he asked, when you nodded your head he brought his hands together in front of him, the middle and index finger pointing up while the others clasped each other.

There was a puff of smoke and you immediately brought your arms up to guard your face, you stared, amazed; as the smoke cleared you saw an exact copy of the old man standing right next to the real one, you could tell the one on the right was the real one, you could feel his chakra.

'Now, can you tell me which one of these is the real me?' both of them spoke at the same time, 'If so, hit the shadow clone with the kunai on the desk' you turned your head to see the small blade lying against the notched wood, you picked it up, feeling the cold metal against your fingers and the slightly worn grip around the handle. You didn't even hesitate before throwing it into the left one. The kunai hit the shadow clone which disappeared in a cloud of smoke

'Very good, you were able to tell which one was the shadow clone & your aim isn't too bad either.' he paused to look at the kunai now stuck into the plaster on the opposite wall, 'but, do you think you'll be able to make a clone yourself?'

'No' you answered simply

'Well I'm going to teach you how, just close your eyes and bring your hands together like I did.'

You did as he said, even though you didn't believe for a second you'd be able to do it,

'Now, try and sense the chakra inside you, this should be easier for you then it is for most people, can you feel it?'

You nodded your head

'Right, now try and pull on that chakra, just a small bit at first and try to focus it into a shadow clone'

You did as he said again, pulling on just enough chakra to fill about half your hand and concentrated on forming it into a shadow clone, you released your chakra and opened your eyes, to see a head of shoulder-length red-tipped black hair in front of you,

'Wha-?' you cut yourself off as you realised you'd succeeded in making a shadow clone! But, as you looked around the room you noticed that you may have succeeded too well. The room was packed to bursting with multiple doppelgangers of yourself.

'Wow, I've never seen that happen before, you got the balance between the two types of chakra perfect! How much did you use?'

'About enough to fill half my hand'

'Huh?'

'Enough to fill half my hand' you repeated

'I heard you, but I've never heard of anyone visualising their chakra quite so well.'

'I can' you retorted

'Yes, it seems so, well this has gone better or worse then we could have ever expected'

'What do you mean better or worse?'

'Well, it depends how things turn out, either you'll be able to fend off the akatsuki when they come, in which case it will be excellent, or you won't but they'll see enough potential in this skill of yours that it may become an even bigger problem'

'Urgh, since when did my life get so difficult?'

He smiled slightly at this, 'Only through challenging ourselves will we ever become stronger. Now, if you could just get rid of these things'

You rolled your eyes, and released the shadow clones, they all disappeared simultaneously in yet more puffs of smoke.

'Right, seeing as you got the hang of that so quickly I'll give you a quick test & then devise a list of stretches & exercises for you to do every day.' he paused and came to stand in front of you, dropping into a traditional karate stance, you copied him, 'Good, now, try and kick my head, don't worry I will block you, hit as hard & as high as you can, I want to check your flexibility'

You nodded your head. You decided a round house kick would probably be best; he had his arms held as if to block a forward attack. You raised your leg and snapped it out, straight towards his head. He blocked it, but not before your foot clipped his ear.

'Hm, tell me why you chose that kick instead of a straight forward front kick.'

'Because you were holding your arms as if to block a forward attack, and you were watching my eyes not my leg, by raising my leg up as if to hit you in a forward kick I could catch you off guard.'

'Yes, and that you would have done if you'd been faster & I slower, Very good, you assessed the situation well within a small amount of time, your kick was powerful & you looked as though reaching that high wasn't a big problem'

'No, I do a lot of swimming which strengthens the leg muscles, despite what a lot of people think, and I do stretch regularly already'

'Why?'

'Because I used to do gymnastics when I was younger, I stopped several years ago, but I kept up the regular stretching every day.' you shrugged your shoulders

'Good, a sense of determination, not giving up. All very important skills a ninja needs'

'Urgh'

'Okay, just try to hit me now, in any way possible; don't be scared of hurting me.'

He had dropped his guard while he'd been talking and you seized the opportunity, you struck out with your left hand, directing it straight for his face, he brought his arms up in a cross and blocked your attack, throwing you back a few paces.

'Very good, keep coming.'

You ran at him, pulling back your hand as if to strike, the only way you would manage to hit him is if you tricked him into dropping his guard or blocking in the wrong place, you'd never fought an opponent that you'd been beaten by but you weren't stupid, you knew this guy could take you any day, despite how old he looked. You pulled your hand back to strike as your approached him, but at the last second dropped, skidding forward and using your left hand to support yourself, swung your legs round to trip him up, you caught one of his legs, but he twisted as he began to fall and landed lightly, supported by both his hands & following straight into a forward roll.

'Good, You saw that the only way for someone of your level to beat me was to trick me, and you took the fact that I still underestimated you to your advantage & pretended you were going for the obvious attack while you were actually planning something quite different. Whoever your sensei ends up being they're going to be very surprised at how little they will actually have to teach you.'

'Whatever, are you finished with that list yet?' you asked in the bored tone you normally adopted when people were complimenting you, it hid how embarrassed you really were.

'A few lessons in manners & respect for your elders might be in order though.' you rolled your eyes but smiled and took the paper that he now held out to you.

'If you don't need to test me anymore I would like to get back home and relax'

'Not before you've done those stretches, your father will be keeping an eye on you and making sure you have done everything on that list at least once a day.'

'Fine whatever' you grumbled leaving the room and slamming the door behind you. You took the side way back so as to avoid any chance of seeing any of your school friends.

You opened your front door to be greeted by two cats looking expectantly up at you

'Urgh, how much food can two animals get through in one day?' you asked them fondly, they stared up at you with their big hopeful eyes, you sighed and walked into the kitchen. You opened a draw and pulled out the cats' fork then bent down to pick up the can of cat food by your foot, which had been nudged there by the noses of the cats. You smiled down at them and opened the tin, spooning out the food into two bowels, they both immediately started eating. You rolled your eyes and checked their water bowl, it was still almost full, that done you then proceeded upstairs and into your bedroom.

You immediately set about doing the exercises the Hokage had given you.

'50 PUSH UPS?' you exclaimed as you read the first thing on the list, 'I Can Hardly Do 10!' you sighed and dropped so you were in position to do push ups.

You'd only got to 15 when your arms gave in, 'Urgh, this is impossible' but despite that you pushed yourself up on your hands again and got through another 4 or 5 before collapsing again, you could feel your heart hammering against your chest and your arms felt like lead, you hadn't realised you were this unfit.

You gave up on the push ups and moved onto the next thing on the list, 50 sit-ups. This time you got to 28 before you couldn't do anymore, you gradually moved down the list like this until you got to the bottom, writing next to each thing how many you were able to get. You then redid everything on the list two times until your attempts added up to the number needed.

You lay on the floor, dripping with sweat, you wanted to get up and have a shower but your limbs felt like they were nailed to the floor. Eventually you groaned and rolled over onto your stomach, pushing yourself up onto your hands & knees before standing up, using the side of your desk to support your weight as you did so.

You walked to the bathroom slowly and shut the door behind you, locking it. You stripped and stepped into the shower, turning it on and just standing there, your eyes closed as the water poured down on your upturned face. After awhile you reached out a hand for the bottle of shampoo, keeping your eyes closed you tried to sense the bottle but your "vision" was blurred by the orange/red drops of water coming from the shower. Your "vision" worked a bit like infra-red, you could sense the energy given off by an object, outlining & filling it in. A bottle of shampoo would only give off a small amount of energy around the edges, the rest of it would be a dark patch, but that in its self told you where the object was. But there was more to it than that, if you applied a little of –what you now knew was- your own chakra to your vision then it would sharpen & become clearer and you could almost feel where the object was.

You tried this now, feeling the bottle with your mind, you tried to manipulate the energy around it, to lift it up, but you only succeeded in making it wobble and fall over. You sighed & opened your eyes, bending down to pick up the bottle and, flicking the lid open with one of your fingers proceeded to wash your hair with the liquid inside, massaging it into your skull, which was still pounding slightly, though whether from the exercises or just the heat of the water you weren't sure.

You climbed out the shower, wrapping a towel around yourself and your hair. You opened the door silently and walked back to your bedroom, closing your bedroom door without a sound. Once back in your room you sat down at your desk & shoved your headphones in your ears, turning your IPod onto shuffle and grabbing your brush. You pulled it through your wet, shoulder length black hair, grunting whenever you caught a knot.

Later that night, as you lay in bed & stared up at the ceiling you thought about what your first day at ninja school would be like, did they even call it that? Would it be anything like ordinary school? The Hokage said something about being in teams of 3 or 4, you wondered what they would be like; would they be nice? Would they all be ridiculously strong? Would they think you were too weak to be a ninja? Would they think you were just a dead-weight, someone they were unfortunate enough to get stuck with? Would they hate or despise you because you aren't as strong as they are? And even though you hated yourself for being so petty you worried about these things all night until finally the hands of sleep smothered you, bringing only the normal nothingness of oblivion.


	2. Fateful Encounter

You woke up to the sound of an alarm clock the next morning, you twisted your head to look at the time and groaned; it was 4 o'clock. But despite that you got up, did your morning routine; washing, eating etc. And when you were done you started walking to the building where you would meet your fellow ninja classmates, yipee...

You opened the door to see a whirlwind of movement & noise. You looked around and they all just looked like ordinary kids, then again, the hokage just looked like an ordinary old man.

You stepped into the class room and walked to the end of a row where a group of boys & a few girls sat

'Hey, can I sit here?' you asked, the guy closest to you looked up and, smiling, moved over slightly

'Of course' you smiled back and he continued, 'Are you new?'

'Yeh' you admitted

'Cool, I'm Kiba'

'I'm Kyouri'

'How come you're joining on the day before the genin exam?'

'Dunno' you lied, 'Parents said I needed to & I figured it would be better than going to ordinary school; you don't have to do maths for a start'

'Yeh' he laughed, 'You're right there.' he opened his mouth as if to say something else but then a Special Jounin ninja came through the door and instead he said, 'That's Iruka; our sensei'

'Cool' you replied as Iruka began walking down the aisle to the front of the classroom.

'Right, today...' he trailed off and looked around the classroom, 'Naruto's late again isn't he?'

There was a general affirming noise from the class and Iruka sighed and was about to continue when there was a knock at the door & two more Jounin stepped in

'Iruka, we have come to speak to you about one of your class mates'

'Naruto I guess?' Iruka asked, you wondered who this Naruto guy was, well whoever he was, from the sounds of things, he wasn't a particularly good ninja.

'Yes, he's painted the hokage faces'

'HE'S DONE WHAT?' Iruka fumed 'I'm going to kill that boy once I get my hands on him.' and with that he stormed up the stairs and followed the other two Jounin out of the door.

'Urgh, typical Naruto' Kiba said next to you, rolling his eyes

'Who's Naruto?' you asked

'Only THE most annoying person ever. I don't see how he's ever going to make it as a ninja; you can hear him from a mile off!'

You raised your eyebrows but said nothing. Kiba ventured a question

'So what about you?'

'What about me?'

'Do you have any brothers or sisters, pets?' he looked rather hopeful at the last remark

'I have a younger brother & sister. My brother's 10 & my sister's 6. I have two cats'

'Cool, I have a dog called Akarmaru' as he said this, his jacket moved and a white dog popped up

You smiled, 'I'm guessing this is him?'

'Yeh' he laughed

'Awh, he's adorable' you said, reaching a hand out to pet him, you held out your hand for him to sniff first, he licked it and you ruffled his fur

'I know, you seem to be good with animals'

'Yeh I love them'

'Same' you smiled at him again & he smiled back, you were still petting Akarmaru when Iruka came back in carrying a blonde haired boy in an orange jump suit, the kid's hands were bound behind his back.

'Naruto! All your classmates will take the graduation test tomorrow and they will all probably succeed, but you, you have taken this test two times already and you failed every part of the test! _And _you chose _now_ for your stupid tricks? IDIOT!' Iruka shouted at the boy, who didn't even bat a lash

'Yes sir' he replied sarcastically

'Argh! Fine! The whole class will be reviewing the art of transformation today, you'll have to conjure at least one copy of me and you have Naruto to thank for that!

'What?'

'That's so unfair!'

'Stupid Uzumaki kid'

You felt sorry for the kid but more worried over whether you would be able to conjure up a shadow clone of someone else; the hokage hadn't shown you how to do that!

'Right, Kiba, you first' Kiba got up and, grinning, whispered 'Wish me luck' as he passed you. You grinned back as he turned and walked down the aisle towards Iruka.

You watched as he produced a perfect copy of Iruka

'Good, well done, Next, Kyouri' you felt your hands go cold as you stood up, but Iruka continued, 'I know you're new,' at the word "new" everyone in the class turned round to look at you, you fought down the blush that was rising to your face 'But the Hokage said you showed great promise,' you mentally winced and wished you could disappear but you forced your face to stay calm and composed, 'So just try your best' he paused to wait for you to reach the front of the classroom, 'Have you ever tried making a copy of someone else before?'

'No.' you replied simply

'Well, like I said, try your best.'

You nodded and looked at him, memorising his features, his clothes, his posture. Once you were sure you knew what he looked like you visualised him in your head and used just enough chakra to fill a finger, shaping it into Iruka. You let the technique out and turned your head to see, an exact replica of Iruka, and another one, and another one. You sighed, but at least you'd managed to make them look like Iruka.

'Very good, next, Uzumaki'

You let go of the technique and walked over to where Kiba was now standing

'Hokage said you showed great promise?' he asked

'Yeh, part of the reason my family wanted me to join up'

'Cool.'

You watched the Naruto kid as he transformed, he was surrounded by loads of chakra, you could see it even without your enhanced vision, there was a puff of smoke and he transformed into a naked blonde with pigtails. Iruka had a nose bleed and you rolled your eyes.

'NARUTO! YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO BECOME A NINJA IF YOU KEEP WASTING ALL YOUR TIME INVENTING STUPID TRICKS!' Iruka yelled at him again.

You watched the others do the transformation, they all did it with no problem.

You said good bye to Kiba and started your walk home, refusing an invite to go to the Ramen bar with them using the fact that you didn't have any money as an excuse & when Kiba offered to pay for you, you just said that you had to get home to feed your cats and you managed to slip away after that.

You were walking home, taking the side way back again when you saw a flurry of movement from the corner of your eye, you moved your hands up to block an attack but as you turned you saw there was no-one there, you scanned the area in front of you & you realised a split second before you felt the two strong arms confining your own to your sides that your attacker was behind you, but by then it was too late of course. You felt their hair brush against your neck as they moved their head forward to whisper in your ear

'Hello there.' the voice was definitely male, emotionless but with an arrogant tint to it

'Who are you?' you asked, your voice firm

He chuckled slightly, the breath from it blowing your hair, 'That's not important'

'Why did you attack me?' you asked, still keeping your voice steady although your heart was beating hard in your chest

'I'd hardly call this an attack, have I hurt you?'

'No, but it's still an attack'

'Hn, No, I'm not attacking you, I'm merely bringing you a message.'

'Oh yeh? And what would that be?'

'You are amazingly good at acting nonchalant'

'Who says I'm acting?'

'Your heart, it's beating 10x it's normal rate, I can feel it.'

You mentally kicked yourself for being scared, but continued in the same confident tone, 'You still haven't told me what this so called message is.'

'It's a message from leader, If you don't want your family to die then collect information on your new team-mates & any other ninjas you come in contact with and meet me back here next week. And don't try to tell anyone about this, we will know, and no matter how much protection they try and give your family it won't be enough.' he paused to let the words sink in 'Just so you don't forget our little encounter, I'll leave you with this...' he trailed off and you felt one of his arms loosen and then the sharp point of something cold against the side of your neck, you kept your face straight as he carved something into your skin with a knife, you felt him lift the knife but still stared straight ahead, even ignoring the feel of his tongue on your neck as he licked the blood off.

'Are you quite finished?' you asked after awhile, he laughed again and let go of your arms, kicking your forward, you caught yourself on your hands before your face hit the ground, you twisted to see a swirl of black material with red clouds patterned on it jump up onto the roof of a building and disappear into the coming darkness of sunset.

You got home and went straight upstairs into your bedroom. You kneeled beside your mirror and examined the cut on your neck, you swore under your breath when you saw how deep it was, it would almost definitely leave a scar. It was in the shape of one of those weird red cloud things you had seen on his coat.

You dropped your hand down into your lap and thought about what he had said, you could try to run away & hide your family but they'd surely find you eventually & you couldn't tell anyone else about it, you couldn't just ignore it. There was only one way of saving your family, you would have to spy on your new team mates, whoever they were.


	3. Memories

As you walked to the academy the next morning you felt as if suddenly there was a great weight bearing down on you; either betray your village or let your family die. Obviously you would betray the village, but it still felt wrong.

You opened the door and looked round until you saw Kiba's smiling face, you walked over to him, faking a smile.

'Hey' he said

'Hi'

'We're taking our test in a minute, just as soon as Iruka sensei arrives'

'Cool, d'you think it will be hard?'

'Nah, it's just basic transformation'

'Oh, that's okay then' you smiled at him and he smiled back.

You were still talking to Kiba and some of the others when Iruka came in,

'Right everyone get in alphabetical order and wait outside this door in an orderly line.' he said as he walked down, indicating a door to the right. You all got up and lined yourselves up in alphabetical order, you were towards the middle of the line. You waited anxiously for your turn and when eventually you were at the front of the line, right outside the door and they called your name, your hands were shaking as you stepped inside.

'Okay, all you have to do is create a shadow clone of yourself,'

You nodded your head and pictured yourself in your mind, taking just enough chakra to fill half a finger and shaped it into yourself. You let out the chakra and a shadow clone appeared next to you, it looked exactly like you, you turned your head to look at it better and saw another one. You sighed but the two Chunin nodded their heads and the white haired one said

'Well done, you are now officially a ninja.' he held out a head band to you, it was blue with a metal plate on it, the plate was engraved with the emblem of the leaf village. You stepped forward and took it from him, Iruka called out the next child's name and you stepped out the door opposite.

You stood amongst a crowd of kids, all being congratulated by their parents, your Dad was standing there, his face giving away no emotion as he saw you come out, head band in hand.

'Well done, I see you are now an official ninja.' he tried to turn it into a bit of a joke but you both knew the only reason you had become a ninja was to protect your family, once he saw you weren't going to answer he ventured something else, 'Mum would have been proud.'

You nodded your head stiffly, it was difficult for both of you to talk about your mum; she had died shortly after your sister had been born. You and the rest of your family had been out on a trip when you were attacked by rouge ninjas, your father managed to escape with your brother and sister, but you hid in the undergrowth as your mother tried to hold them off. You saw them murder your mother in front of you, a hand clamped to your mouth to stop yourself from screaming.  
>You had wanted to look away, but you couldn't tear your gaze away from the sight of your mother's motionless body lying on the ground. You didn't move from your hiding place amongst the bushes until your father found you much later that night, it had rained and you were drenched. Even as he picked you up &amp; carried you back home, you still couldn't look away from the form of your mother, a small pool of blood puddled underneath her, the deep red liquid starting to trail away towards the foots of trees as it mixed with the rain.<p>

You walked the rest of the way home in silence, once you got home you fed your cats, grabbed an apple and continued upstairs to your room where you spent about an hour & a half doing the stretches & exercise on your training list before having a shower & falling asleep.


	4. NightTime Disturbance

You awoke to the sound of silence, you looked across at your alarm and saw it was still 3 am, strange. You wondered what had woken you up, maybe it was one of your cats? You got up out of bed and scanned your room, but it was empty. You walked to the door and twisted the handle slowly, so as not to wake anyone else up.

You proceeded cautiously downstairs to hear a scratching at the side door, you sighed and walked over.

You opened the door & looked down, expecting to see the normal furry hopeful face staring up at you, instead you saw a pair of feet and the hem of a black cloak. The next thing you knew you were pinned to the floor, a kunai held to your throat.

'Hello again Kyouri-san' it was the same voice as last time. You tensed & prepared yourself, you had gone to bed with your kunai pack on your leg & this time you were determined to at least see the face of your attacker.

You twisted and kicked up backwards into their groin, they doubled over and you rolled out from underneath them, grabbing for a kunai, but as you looked across at him you saw he was holding your kunai pack in his hand,

'Looking for these?' he asked, his tone mocking. You glared at him as you memorised his features; he had black hair, two bangs hanging on either side of his face, his eyes were red with two black dots in them.

You didn't bother replying, instead you focused your chakra on & around the pack of kunai and tried to pull it out of his hand, you saw his grip tighten and his hand jerk slightly forward before he was able to pull it back, he looked at you, one eyebrow raised

'I take it that is your special ability leader was so interested in? Though it doesn't seem that important.'

'Oh, that's not all I can do' you replied, keeping your tone confident,-although you were shaking inside- a slight grin on your face.

'Is that so? Well then, show me'

Your grin widened even as your mind panicked over whether you would or would not be able to do this. You focused on his eyes, looking through them with your vision, diving in past them, as you did so you noticed a strange amount of chakra surrounding his eye area but you ignored it, proceeding until you could feel the chakra & energy in his brain. From there you realised you could sense every part of his body, you experimentally moved one leg forward, and he stepped forward. You grinned up at him,

'I won't have to.' you began, 'Seeing as you're going to give me back my kunais anyway.' you focused again, using your chakra to make his legs move, the first few steps were very robotic but by the third stiff step you were getting the hang of the proportions of force needed to move each muscle. You extended the hand that held your kunais and reached out your own hand. You started to open the fingers on his hand but at the last second his hand clenched and he tore away from your control, jumping back a few paces before throwing some shuriken, which pinned you to the wall.

'Now I see, that is indeed a powerful skill even though you have far from mastered It.' he seemed to be musing something over, you gritted your teeth in annoyance. 'Yes, you would be a great asset to us. If you want to join & save your family just remember to collect information on your new team mates once you meet them tomorrow.' he smiled evilly 'If you are not there or you have not collected information then we will kill your family, don't think we won't. I myself killed almost my entire clan.' he smiled as if it was some happy memory, your lip twisted in disgust but he had disappeared out the door and into the night before you could answer.

You extracted the shuriken that were pinning you to the walls using your new mind technique, smiling as you did so. You were extremely proud you had finally begun to develop your skills.

You shut the door and locked it before going upstairs and climbing back into bed.


	5. New Enemies, or Should That Be Friends?

You awoke a few hours later to the sound of your alarm. You got out of bed and did your morning routine. You got dressed, tying your head band round your waist, so the metal plate was slightly to the side. You grabbed an apple on your way to the academy, despite the morning's events you were still excited about today.

You opened the door and stepped through, Kiba waved at you and you walked over.

'We're getting put into teams today'

'Wow, how many in a team?' you asked although you already knew.

'3 or 4, it would be so cool if we got in as a team, then we could train together.'

'Yeh' you replied though you didn't want to have to spy on Kiba.

The Naruto kid came through the door, and you heard some of the other kids talking to him.

'Naruto! You can't be here; this is a _ninjas_ only class'

'I am a ninja! See!' you turned round to see him pointing to the headband on his head

'God knows how he managed to get in, I thought he flunked the exam yesterday?' you turned back round at the sound of Kiba's voice to see him also twisted to watch the scene at the back of the class.

Naruto walked forward, past the desk where you were sitting, almost to the front of the front class, and sat down next to a dark haired boy. A pink head wearing a red dress walked towards the row where he was sitting. Naruto turned round and stared at her as if she was a goddess or something, she said something to him and he turned round to glare at the dark haired boy, who looked at him and said something. The pink head then pushed past Naruto and sat down next to the other guy, looking at him even more dreamily then Naruto had looked at her.

You turned back to talk to Kiba but he was still watching them, you turned your head back round just in time to see Naruto fall onto the other boy and their mouths collide, you and Kiba both burst out laughing while Naruto and the other one were mock choking, you wiped your eyes -you'd been laughing so hard you'd started crying- only to start laughing again when the pink haired girl proceeded to then beat him up.

'God, I feel sorry for anyone who gets stuck on a team with any of that lot.' Kiba said to you and you nodded your head in agreement.

Iruka sensei walked in and you turned so you were facing the front of the class,

'Ok, from this day forward you are all now full-fledged shinobi!' his tone developed a warning tint 'But don't get too cocky, as far as the ninja world is concerned you are still the lowest of the low, mere novices.' he grinned at all of you, 'But you will still carry out jobs for your village. We will start by getting you into three man cells. Each team will be assigned a Jounin or chunin ninja.' he started to elaborate, as if anyone didn't know what a jounin or chunin was, even you knew & you had only been training as a ninja for a few days! 'They are elite ninja, to help train & guide you.' he paused to look at everyone, 'I have already selected the members of each team, and, seeing as our numbers do not add up, there will be one team of four. Okay, the teams are...'

You listened as he rattled out the endless list of names, you didn't recognise any of them so instead you just listened out for your name and number. He got to team number 7 and you heard your name

'Okay, Team number 7, Itsuwari Kyouri, Harano Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto & Uchiha Sasuke.' you groaned as you realised you were with the Pink haired girl _and_ the dark haired boy from earlier _and_ Naruto.

'Oooh, Unlucky' you heard Kiba murmur next to you, you sighed & he laughed.

'WHAT? HOW COULD YOU STICK A PERFECTLY GOOD NINJA LIKE ME WITH A LOSER LIKE SASUKE?' Naruto exclaimed, pointing at the dark haired boy.

'Well Naruto, Out of 28 of you, Sasuke has the second highest grades, you on the other hand have by far the lowest! So I had to combine the highest and the second highest scoring ninja in this class to equal out your skills'

'Huh? Who's the highest scoring ninja? Sakura?' Naruto asked confused

'No' Iruka said, and you winced as you realised it was you, and, surely enough, every pair of eyes in the room turned to stare at you in wonder even before Iruka finished the sentence, 'Your newest classmate Itsuwari Kyouri got the highest grades.'

'What? But she's only been here for a few days! How can you test her grades on that?' Naruto continued, outraged

'I didn't, The Hokage did.'

This shut Naruto up, but you heard everyone else whispering.

'What? How can she be better than Sasuke?'

'Yeh, he's amazing'

You sighed & resisted the urge to bury your head in your hands,

'Wow, you must be really good, Sasuke is really strong'

'I'm not that good! There has to be a mistake, I should have been at the bottom of the class!'

'The hokage doesn't make mistakes' was all Kiba said as a reply to this.

Iruka called out the rest of the teams; Kiba was in team 8 with a shy girl with no pupils & a boy wearing a long high-necked coat and black circular glasses.

'Okay, I'll be introducing everyone to the Jounin or Chunin members this afternoon, until then, you're dismissed'

You walked outside and said good bye to Kiba, who went off with his team. You braced yourself for betraying the people who were soon to become your team.

You saw Sasuke standing by himself eating a rice ball and went over to him, he looked somewhat familiar but you couldn't quite place it.

'Hey, you're Sasuke right?'

'Yeh and you're Kyouri, top ninja in our class.'

'Yeh' you replied, though it sounded like he was pissed at you, you wondered if it was because he was second best to you, 'About the whole grade thing, Don't expect me to be amazing 'cos I'm not, I'll probably be even worse than that Naruto kid, I don't get why I got the highest grades it was probably just a mistake.' you said, smiling.

'The hokage wouldn't make a mistake, and anyway, I don't care whether you got higher grades than me because I know I could take any of you losers with my hands tied behind my back!'

'Yeh, actually I'm guessing you could, at the moment. But, give me a few months and you won't find it so easy.'

'You wanna bet? I could show you right now how good you'd have to be to beat me'

'Are you challenging me to a fight?' You asked, glaring at him although you knew you'd probably end up regretting rising to his challenge.

'Yeh I am'

'Fine then, let's do this and I'll show you why I got top marks'

'I thought you said there'd been a mistake.' he retorted, smart-ass

'Well, we're about to find out if there was'

You were about to sink into a guard position when you heard your name and spun round, to see a group of about 5 of your old school friends coming towards you, you turned back to look at Sasuke.

'We'll fight later' was all you said

'Scared of losing in front of your friends?'

'No, scared they'll be scared of me if they see me beating someone up' you replied smirking, although he was correct.

'Hey guys' you said as they stopped in front of you

'Hey, how's your first day as a ninja?' The one at the front asked you, her name was Wakana.

'Alright, haven't done much yet'

'Is this another of your class mates?' the tallest girl asked, she was Akari and absolutely boy mad, she was staring at Sasuke as though he was some kind of god.

'Yeh, He's on my team'

'You're on a team? Wow that is so cool!'

'Mmm' you replied, not convinced

'So then, what's his name?' she continued still staring lovingly at him

'My name's Sasuke' he answered for himself

The two boys at the back of the group rolled their eyes and whispered something you didn't quite catch, but Sasuke obviously did as his eyes suddenly flicked to glare at them.

'You got a problem with me? Say it to my face.'

'Urh, Kyouri? Your team mate's a tiny bit grumpy, don't you think?' This was Sasuga, one of your best friends that you'd known since forever.

'You're telling me.'

'Yeh but he's still cute!' Akari protested

'You just said that out loud.' Ikari pointed out

'Did I? Ooops' Akari said blushing and ducking her head behind her twin.

Ikari and Akari were twins and in some ways they were identical, in others they were complete opposites. Akari was hyper, loud & boy mad where as Ikari was calm, quiet & definetly never lost her head over a guy. She rolled her eyes at her twin and you grinned.

'Yeh that's a bit harsh mate' Zurui said, addressing Sasuke and completely ignoring the scene that had happened right in front of him, seeing as he went through the exact same thing every day.

Sasuke just glared at him and turned to you when he spoke, 'Tell your friend I'm not his "mate".' and with that he stalked off.

'God, he is such an arse' Ikari said, just loud enough for him to hear, he ignored her and kept walking.

'Yeh, he is' you agreed, also so he could hear.

'So, who else is on your team? Anyone nice or are all ninja's like him?' Sasuga asked, motioning towards the disappearing figure of Sasuke

'There are two others, one girl & one boy. The boy's called Naruto and is kinda annoying but isn't mean like Sasuke & The girl's Sakura, she has pink hair and is boy mad, 'nough said'

Everyone laughed except Akari who said indigently, 'There is nothing wrong with being "boy mad" '

You grinned at her, 'Trust me, this girl would put you to shame, she spent an entire hour staring at one boy'

'Only one? But I heard ninja boys are quite cute'

You and Ikari sighed and everyone sweat dropped

'Anyway, I've got to get going, see If I can find my way back to the academy.' you said after a while of everyone standing in silence.

'Yeh ok, see you later. Will you be on IM tonight?' Zurui asked

'Yeh probably, if I have any time left after all those stupid exercise things the Hokage told me I have to do.'

He grinned, 'Kay, speak to you tonight, or not as the case may be.'

'Yeh, bye' Akari said hugging you,

'Bye' Wakana repeated also hugging you before walking towards where Zurui & Akari were waiting

'Bye Kyouri, try and have fun, even if all your team-mates are either completely stupid, air headed or arrogant.' Sasuga said and you laughed as he pulled you into a bear hug, Sasuga was practically twice your height & ridiculously muscled for a 13 year old, unfortunately, he also enjoyed reminding you how small you were compared to him.

'I will try, If I can walk after having my bones crushed.' he laughed and let you down, Ikari was standing next to him with an amused smile on her face, she rarely ever laughed but that didn't mean she didn't find things funny.

'Like he said, try and have fun & tell me all about it tonight.' she said hugging you

'Will do' you replied with a smile before walking off in the other direction, waving good bye to your friends. As you walked away from them you felt suddenly very depressed because this was the way it would always be between you now, They'd always be going off together laughing & joking like normal teenagers and you'd always be going the opposite direction constantly fighting & training, you weren't sure you were as happy about this ninja training now as you had secretly been when the Hokage had first told you. Becoming a ninja meant not being with your friends, constantly being in danger and living a life of stress & pain, now that you thought about it you'd give anything to be walking away with them right now, even though a couple of weeks ago you would have given anything to go off on exciting ninja adventures.

You saw Sasuke again and went up to him.

'God Sasuke you're such an arsehole! They're my friends; you can't bloody speak to them like that! At least not without answering to me afterwards.' you said angrily.

He looked completely baffled, 'Erhh, What do you mean?'

'What do I mean! You know bloody fucking well what I mea-' you caught yourself as you realised he didn't actually know what you meant, 'You're not Sasuke are you?'

'Urm, Of course I am!'

You sighed, 'No you're not; if you were Sasuke you wouldn't have replied like that 'cos he's too stuck up and arrogant.'

There was a puff of smoke and Sasuke was replaced with Naruto,

'Ok fine! You got me! But please don't tell Sakura.'

'Huh? Why would I tell her?'

'Erhh, Just don't ok?'

'Yeh yeh fine, whatever.'

'Thank you sooo much!' he said and poofed back into Sasuke

'Just one more thing, where is Sasuke?'

'He's tied up in a room back there' he said pointing to a building, 'But please don't free him! He'll kill me!'

'Don't worry I won't, I just want to annoy him while he's tied up and can't hit me'

Naruto grinned, 'Well have fun...' he trailed off as he realised he didn't know your name

'Kyouri' you answered his unasked question

'Cool, I'm Uzumaki Naruto! Number one ninja & Future Hokage! Believe it!'

'Nice to meet you' you replied and set off in the direction on the building.

You arrived at the building Naruto had pointed out and jumped over the counter to see Sasuke lying on the floor with his hands tied behind his back and duck tape over his mouth, he looked up when he saw you, you smirked.

'Beaten by Naruto, well that's embarrassing.' you stated, he glared at you and your smile widened, 'What's with the evil looks? Naruto tied you up here, not me.' you paused to look at him, he was still glaring at you. Fuck, you were enjoying this! 'Well, I guess I could let you go, but I thought you said you could beat me with your hands tied behind your back? Well then, let's see you do it.' He made a sound that might have been something like a snarl, you just stared at him for a few seconds, 'Well I guess you can't beat me with your hands tied behind your back, Oh we-' you stopped mid-sentence as you were knocked against the wall, the impact of your body hitting stone knocked the breath out of you.

'Shit' you hissed from between your clenched teeth, Sasuke was standing in front of you, a smug look on his face.

'Simple rope trick.' he explained, 'Now what were you saying about me not being able to beat you?'

You straightened up, one hand against the wall to steady yourself and looked up, forcing a smirk onto your face even though you felt like collapsing as your head spun, 'I said you couldn't beat me with your hands behind your back, your hands are loose now so therefore it is invalid'

'You think you can talk your way out of this?' he asked.

'I think I have a better chance of talking my way out of it than fighting my way out of it.' you admitted.

'Well you're failing miserably at talking your way out of it, so god knows how bad you're going to be at fighting.'

'I disagree, I've managed to stall you so far and I've pretty much regained my breath & balance' which was true, you were no longer dizzy and had recovered from being winded

His glare darkened and he lunged for you, you moved your head just in time to save yourself a broken nose

'Now, since when has violence been the answer?' you asked, desperately trying to find ways of stalling him without making it too obvious

'Since you became a ninja. Maybe before, everything in your life was solved by words but in the ninja world it's fight or be defeated.' he said as he threw multiple punches at you, which you blocked

'Yeh, I'd pretty much gathered' you replied as you backed into a wall and ducked to avoid another punch to the face, you rolled sideways and spun round, sweeping his legs, he fell but caught himself on his hands before he could hit the ground, he jumped on top of you and pinned your arms to the floor.

'Don't you ever, _ever_ try to tell me what to do _ever _again, you got it?' -every time he said "ever" he whacked your head against the floor- 'Otherwise you're dead' He got up off you and you wasted no time in swiping his legs again, but this time you jumped on him, pinning _his_ arms to the floor.

'Oopsie, looks like you let your guard down.' you said grinning, you pulled out a couple of kunai and thrust them through his sleeves so he was stuck. 'Isn't that one of the main rules of being a ninja; never let your guard down?' You stood up but he kicked you in the side of the knee, making your legs buckle. He struggled to pull the kunai out of his sleeves, it only took him a couple of seconds but that was enough for you to recover from the shock and roll out of his way as he tried to pin you to the floor again. You stood up quickly and faced him, backing up a few paces so he couldn't reach you without moving.

Sasuke looked at the clock in the corner of the room and relaxed

'Recess is over, we'll continue this fight later, otherwise we'll be late.' he said, indicating the clock, you nodded and headed for the door. No sooner had you turned around then you felt your arms being constricted behind your back and the sharp point of a kunai held to your throat, you felt his hair tickle your neck as he leaned in to whisper something in your ear, you suppressed a shiver as the memories of your attack in the alleyway came back to you.

'Oopsie, guess you let your guard down, huh? That's one of the main rules of being a ninja. And uh, just to let you know, I _would_ have won.' he let you go and you spun round to hit him, but he had already gone.

'Damn him!' you exclaimed as you realised he must have jumped over the counter. You walked out the door and back towards the academy.


	6. Gotta Shape Up

You walked into the classroom to see a room full of people. You sat down next to Sakura who was sitting next to Sasuke. She didn't even seem to notice you sit down, her eyes were glued to Sasuke, you rolled your own. Your thoughts drifted to your friends, who would be sitting in class now as well, though one very different from this. It had been almost half an hour & all the other teams' senseis had already come and gone and now it was just you, Sakura, Sasuke & Naruto in the room.

Naruto jumped up, 'What? Why is our sensei the only one who isn't here yet!'

'I dunno.' Sakura said looking at Naruto, taking her eyes of Sasuke for the first time.

'Hmph!' he stormed up to the desk, and, grabbing an eraser, then proceeded to balance it carefully above the half opened door. 'This is what he gets for being late!'

'Naruto!" Sakura complained, 'You can't do that!'

'Yeh you idiot, He's an elite shinobi, he's not going to fall for some stupid prank like that' Sasuke put in.

'Yeh, Sasuke's right'

You sighed and rested your head in your hand, just then the door creaked open and a jounin walked in, to be greeted by a cloud of chalk from the eraser that landed on his head.

'HAHAHAH! YOU FELL FOR IT!' Naruto exclaimed, almost falling over with laughter

'I'm so sorry sensei, I tried to stop him but..' Sakura claimed, trailing off at the end

'Well, my first impression of this group is,' he paused to look first at the eraser, then at the rest of you 'you're a bunch of idiots' everyone sweat dropped

'That's nice' you commented sarcastically, he looked across at you but didn't say anything, you couldn't even see the expression on his face as most of it-except from one eye- was covered by a mask or his head band which he was wearing sideways over the left side of his face, he had white spiky hair and from the one eye you could see he looked bored.

'Right then' he said after a while, 'Follow me' you all got up and followed him out of the room.

He stopped by some steps and indicated for you to all sit down, you did so and he went to lean against some railing opposite.

'So, let's start by introducing ourselves'

'What sort of stuff shall we say?' Sakura asked

'Your name, likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future. That kind of thing'

'Why don't you go first sensei? To show us how to do it'

'Ok, well my name is Hatake Kakashi I dislike telling people my likes & dislikes & I like not telling people my likes & dislikes, My dreams for the future, never really thought about them to be honest. And I have lots of hobbies'

'That was completely useless, the only thing he really told us was his name' Sakura whispered, Naruto nodded his head.

'Ok, now it's your turn, first you on the right' he said, looking at Naruto.

'My name is Uzumaki Naruto, I like instant ramen in a cup & I really like the ramen master Iruka brought me at the Ichiraku ramen bar...' he continued to go on about ramen and you rolled your eyes and stopped listening until he got to his dreams, 'And my dream is to one day become Hokage! So people will stop disrespecting me and look up to me!'

'Hmm,' you thought to yourself 'He may not be quite as stupid as he appears'

'Ok, next, the pink one.' Kakashi continued

'I'm Haruno Sakura, My favourite thing, or person, is a boy, and that boy is..' she trailed off giggling, 'Urm, well my dream for the future is...' she looked at Sasuke and blushed, giggling again, 'I hate,.. Naruto!' she exclaimed looking disgusted. You rolled your eyes again and sighed,

'Ok, Next'

'My name is Uchiha Sasuke I like very little and dislike a lot of things' at this Sakura looked at him shocked & hurt 'I don't have a "dream" but I do have an ambition that I will make a reality, and that is to restore my clan & kill a certain someone' his eyes darkened and he glared at the ground.

'Ook, Finally the last person.' Kakashi said, breaking the silence

'Well my name is Itsuwari Kyouri, I dislike boy crazy girls, hyper people, people who are arrogant and people who are evasive' you started, looking first at Sakura, then Naruto, Sasuke & finally Kakashi, who looked slightly amused. 'I like _normal_ people, my hobbies are music & drawing I don't have a dream or an ambition.'

'Well, it seems we all know each other now' Kakashi began, ignoring the fact that everyone was glaring at you, you just smiled at them, 'Training begins tomorrow.'

'Yes sir! What will our first ninja mission be? Maybe we'll save some princesses or defeat a nation of evil warriors.'

'Erh, Naruto? I somehow doubt that's it' Sakura said with a "wtf" look on her face.

'No Naruto, Our first project involves only us five'

'What is it?' Naruto asked, still excited

'Survival exercise'

'What? But we spent all the academy doing that!'

'Yeh sensei, we've all already covered that' Sakura pointed out

'Kyouri hasn't' he replied they all turned to look at you

'I knew having the rookie on our team would slow us down' Sasuke complained, glaring at you

'In fact, you are all rookies and you're not doing the test for Kyouri's benefit, none of you will have done something like this before. This is going to be very different from your academy training'

'Huh? Why, why will it be different from our academy training?' Naruto was the only one who asked, even though you were all curious.

Kakashi looked down and started to laugh, you narrowed your eyes

'What? Why are you laughing sensei? That was a perfectly normal question'

'No reason, just that if I told you, you wouldn't like the answer'

'Huh? Why? I'm ready for anything! Believe it!'

'Well, out of the 28 of you that passed, only 9 or 10 of you will actually be accepted as genin, which means that this test has a 66% chance of failure.'

You rolled your eyes, you knew what he was trying to do; he was trying to scare you into mucking up tomorrow in the survival test, well, you weren't going to fall for it.

'WHAT? BUT WE'VE BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH! WHAT ABOUT OUR GRADUATION TEST?' Naruto said, or more shouted, at the top of his voice.

'Oh that? We just wanted to eliminate the really hopeless ones. Well, in any event we'll meet on the training field tomorrow morning, and don't be late'

You stood up, 'is that everything, or are you going to try and scare us some more by telling us we have no chance of succeeding'

The lines of his mask creased in a way that suggested he was smiling, 'Did I ever say that you had no chance of succeeding?'

'No, but you were implying it, if only to scare us into making a mistake tomorrow'

'Now why would I do a thing like that?' he asked, looking innocent, you rolled your eyes. 'In fact, there are a few more things, firstly, don't eat breakfast tomorrow, unless of course, you enjoy puking.'

'Puke? How hard is this stupid test going to be?" Sakura said, panicking.

'All the details are on this paper' he said, handing out a paper with a whole load of writing on it, 'You may want to read this over more carefully than the others' he said looking at you, you nodded your head and put the piece of paper in your bag. 'See you guys tomorrow in the training field.' he said, you all began to walk away but he grabbed your arm, you immediately twisted your arm round so you could grab onto his wrist, making it impossible for another attack.

'Good reflexes' he commented as he let go of your arm and you let go of his wrist, 'But I wasn't trying to attack you, The hokage wanted me to go over some of the basic ninja skills with you & to give you a test to see how much extra training you'll need to get up to the same skill & stamina level of the rest of the people in your group.'

'Fine' you said sighing, 'What first?'

'Okay, just try and hit me, use whatever method you like, but no weapons for now.'

You nodded your head, dropping your bag on the floor & sinking into a guard position, he stood up straight, watching you. You looked up at him, judging the best way to attack, you decided your best bet would be to try and sweep his legs, seeing as he was taller than you and you couldn't get in a decent face punch. You decided to try the same technique you'd used on the hokage.

You ran for him, pulling back your arm as if about to strike, he watched you, but his eyes were on your arm and face, he wasn't watching your legs, perfect.

As you neared him you released your arm but as he tensed to block it you dropped to the floor, skidding forward & past him, grabbing his ankles together and pulling him over with the momentum of your run. You quickly spun and aimed a punch at his face, but he caught your arm and threw you off him. You stood up quickly and turned to face him,

'Good, you evaluate situations well, though I'm sure you've already been told that by the hokage' you nodded your head, breathing slightly faster than normal, 'Ok, now, try and block me' he was suddenly right in front of you & it was only by luck & reflexes that you managed to block his first few attacks, you stumbled backwards until you met the hard surface of a tree. He punched again and you ducked, only to be met by his leg swinging round on a collision course with your head, you brought up your arm & jabbed your elbow into the side of his knee. You then wasted no time in grabbing his ankle and twisting his leg round so he fell over onto his back, but, like everyone else, he caught himself before he could actually connect with the floor and pushed you sideways, making you lose your balance and your grip on his foot. You rolled forward to avoid falling over, and stood up, once again turning to face him. He was also standing up.

'Very good, and you say you've never had any previous ninja training?'

'No' was all you replied, out of breath.

'So most of it is just instinctive, your stamina needs some work but that will naturally improve over time.' he paused to think 'Overall, not too bad, but I guess we'll see how good you really are in tomorrow's training, remember don't eat breakfast, unless of course-'

'I enjoy puking, I got it. But, just to let you know, you may be able to manipulate the others into thinking you're stopping us from eating just to help us but I'm not that stupid. I normally skip breakfast, but tomorrow I'll make a special exception.' You smiled and started to walk off when you heard Kakashi's voice calling you,

'Kyouri,' he began, you stopped and turned round, 'Ok, you've figured it out, but, how about you skip breakfast anyway, otherwise you won't get the full benefit of the training?'

You rolled your eyes, 'I'll think about it.' you replied after a while and started off again back home.

That night in bed, after you'd done your exercises you thought back over the day, overall it hadn't been exactly amazing; your team mates were a bunch of idiots who were probably 10 xs stronger than you & you'd managed to make an enemy out of all of them. You sighed, 'Well' you thought, 'let's just hope tomorrow's at least a tinsy bit better' Which seemed possible actually, seeing as it couldn't really get much worse.

You tossed and turned but couldn't seem to get to sleep, this wasn't unusual though, you'd had insomnia since a very early age, only just recently had it started to fade, probably due to the five hours of exercise you now did before bed. Hopefully this was a sign that you were getting better. But insomnia wouldn't help you in the survival test tomorrow; you'd be wiped out if you didn't get any sleep now. You got up and walked over to your dresser, opened the door and pulled out a small packet of tablets. You popped out two of the white oval solids and put them in your mouth, ignoring the bitter chemical taste that came with them. Grabbing some water that was standing on your bedside table and you quickly swallowed them. You put the remaining tablets back in your draw and walked back to bed, the sleeping pills already taking effect as your mind grew foggy & dull. You climbed into bed, pulling the covers up around you, feeling numb.


	7. Maybe There Is Hope For The Future

You awoke the next morning, your head groggy & your limbs like lead.

'Urgh, Stupid sleeping pills' you complained as you stood up and your head spun, the effects would wear off in a couple of minutes but at the moment it felt like someone was hammering your skull & your blood had been replaced with lead. You walked into your bathroom, running the cold tap and splashing your face with the icy water. You straightened up, feeling slightly better, & did the rest of your morning routine. By the time you were ready the effects of the drug had almost completely worn off.

You left home without eating breakfast & walked to the training field, the longer you walked the clearer your head became. You saw three silhouettes standing in the middle of an opening and assumed they were your team mates, as you came closer they saw you.

'Oh look, she's finally decided to show up.' Sasuke said, rolling his eyes,

'As far as I'm concerned, if sensei's not here when I arrive then I'm not late.' you retorted.

'Who's late?' Said a voice behind you, you spun to see Kakashi,

'You!' Naruto complained

'Well sorry, a black cat crossed my path and I had to take another route.' he explained, as if it was a perfectly plausible reason, 'Anyway I have set this alarm to go off at noon, I have three bells, you have to try and get one before the alarm sounds, anyone who doesn't get one doesn't get lunch & will fail.' you rolled your eyes 'Did everyone here not have breakfast?' addressing you more than anyone else.

'No, I didn't' you replied sighing, the rest of them looked at you, puzzled, but you ignored them.

'Good! Just checking.' he said, his eyes creasing to show he was smiling.

'Wait, How are you expecting us to get a bell off you? You're a Jounin, we're only Genin.'

'That's your problem, not mine. but, one of you will end up not having lunch & failing, seeing as there aren't enough bells to go round, and if you fail, it's straight back to the ninja academy for you' he paused to let the words sink in, 'You may use any weapons, and if you want to beat me you're going to have to come at me to kill, otherwise none of you stand a chance'

'WHAT? But that's too dangerous!' Sakura said, worried.

'Yeh! especially since you couldn't even dodge an eraser' Naruto added, laughing, you smiled slightly at this.

'He does have a point' you said.

'The loudest ones are always the worst, always weak & stupid' Kakashi said in reply, directing his words at Naruto who glared and pulled out a kunai, you side stepped out of the way, seeing as you were between him & Kakashi. Once Naruto was past you he headed straight for Kakashi, who, in a single movement almost too fast to see, dodged & countered Naruto's attack.

'Not so fast, I didn't say go.' was all he said, looking completely under control.

You looked round at the others to see looks of awe on their faces, even on Sasuke's

'Wow Sasuke, you actually look impressed' you commented, grinning. His face snapped back to normal and he glared at you

'But you came at me as if to kill,' Kakashi continued as if you hadn't said anything, 'So that's a good start, Hmm, maybe, just maybe I'm starting to like this group, Now...ready, set, GO!'

Sasuke and Sakura jumped into the trees and, seeing as you couldn't do that, you dived into a nearby bush and moved from there. You climbed up into a tree which was full of leaves -perfect for hiding in. You moved so you were crouched on a branch, one hand on the trunk of the tree to steady yourself. You watched as Kakashi stood in the open, looking round, You saw an orange blob out of the corner of your eye and turned to see Naruto, standing in the open like an idiot.

'Come on sensei! You and me, right here, right now, a fair fight.'

'Erh, Naruto? Compared to the others you're acting a bit strange.' Kakashi pointed out.

'Strange? You can talk with half a face & morning encounters with Cats!' & with that he jumped at him, but stopped again as Kakashi reached a hand into his pocket, but he only pulled out a book, Naruto sweat dropped.

'WHAT THE HELL! WHY ARE YOU READING A BOOK!'

'To find out what happens in the story, isn't that why people normally read books? But just ignore it, seeing who I'm up against it won't really matter either way.'

'I'M GONNA BEAT YOU TO A PULP!' Naruto exclaimed and jumped at him again, he made several attempts at hitting him but missed every time

'NARUTO!' you called, but taking care to project your voice so Kakashi wouldn't be able to tell where it was coming from, "thank god for drama classes" you thought silently to yourself 'HE'S _TRYING_ TO ANNOY YOU INTO MAKING A MISTAKE, DON'T FALL FOR IT!' Kakashi wasted no time in getting behind Naruto and nailing him in the butt so hard he went flying, but after that he straightened up looking around trying to find where you were hiding

'You shouldn't give your position away like that' he said, you didn't reply as you knew he was just trying to get you to talk again so he could pinpoint your location, you ignored him for awhile and instead tried to look for Sakura and Sasuke. You found Sakura first, you jumped down onto the floor, wincing as your feet hit the ground & you realised you were _slightly_ higher up than you had thought. You rushed over to her, tapping her on the shoulder, she jumped & made a small noise from alarm.

'Don't scream' you warned her, she turned her head, and, noticing it was only you, relaxed, you continued, 'Listen, don't you think it's a bit ridiculous that we would have to defeat a Jounin? Especially seeing as we've only just graduated?'

'Yeh, I guess so.'

'Well, I think the whole point of this exercise is to check how well we work as a team.'

'Yeh, that makes sense.'

'Right, you stay here, I'm going to go find Sasuke & tell him, then I'll signal you and we'll all go out and attack him together, don't move from this spot'

'Got it' she replied, you nodded and crawled out from the bush, still keeping slightly bent until you were further away. You climbed up into another tree and tried to look for Sasuke, you saw Naruto hanging upside down from a tree & Kakashi standing in front of him, then you saw Kakashi falling to the ground as a wave of kunai hit him, you rushed over to the spot which the kunai had come from, but Sasuke was already gone.

'Shit' you swore under your breath, you threw another kunai to cut the rope Naruto was hanging from and saw that there was only a stump of wood where Kakashi's body should have been. Naruto landed and got caught in another trap, you heard a scream in the distance that sounded a lot like Sakura, you rolled your eyes, _of course_ she had moved, probably as soon as she had seen Sasuke was in danger. You jumped down in front of Naruto, seeing as Kakashi was hopefully preoccupied elsewhere

'I'm not going to cut you down yet, stay there & once I start fighting Kakashi I'll cut you down at an appropriate time. When I do I'll need you to help me by making as many clones as you possibly can and attacking Kakashi from all angles, got it?'

'Erh, yeh' he said looking unsure,

'That will do, now I need to go find Sasuke, just wait here.'

You went off in the direction of the scream and saw Sasuke peering round a tree, you went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder, motioning with a finger on your lips for him to be quite, he nodded, you whispered in a voice so quiet you yourself could hardly hear it.

'There is no way they'd ever expect us to beat a Jounin at our level, the whole point of this exercise is to test our skills at working in a team.'

He rolled his eyes at you, 'Maybe that's the case for you, but I'm stronger than any of you, I can take this loser.'

You sighed, but spun as you sensed a presence behind you.

'Say that once you have a bell Sasuke.'

'Kyouri, get out of my way' Sasuke said, standing in front of you now, you rolled your eyes, here we go.

'The power of the Uchiha clan, the strongest bloodline in Konohagakure, I'm looking forward to this.'

They both moved at the same time, you sighed and turned to face where Naruto should have been hanging, but he was gone, you sighed again, why couldn't anyone just listen to instructions?

You turned to see Sasuke almost grabbing one of the bells from Kakashi, you came at him from behind, throwing multiple kunais and jumping up into the air, extending your leg in a kick. Kakashi spun round just in time to block your attack, but had to release your leg as Sasuke came at him from the other side, your hand shot out and you grabbed one of the bells, he gasped and pulled out a kunai, scraping it along your hand causing you to loosen your hold, the bell clattered to the floor. Sasuke dived for it at the same time as Kakashi, you waited until Kakashi was going too fast to stop then quickly charged straight into him, it knocked the breath out of you, but you managed to slow him long enough for Sasuke to grab the bell. Kakashi quickly got you in an arm lock and held a kunai to your throat.

'Sasuke, hand over the bell or I'll kill her.' Kakashi's voice was deadly serious but you saw through his lie.

'Don't, he wouldn't, in fact he can't.' you said hurriedly

'You wanna bet?' he ran the kunai lightly over your neck, just enough to draw blood, you felt him pause for a second and remembered the cut that had been carved onto your neck in the ally. Sasuke tightened his grip on the bell, his gaze flicking from your face, to Kakashi's, to the kunai

'Think about it seriously Sasuke, he's a jounin of this village, He can't kill someone from his own village, that's against the law.' Sasuke relaxed slightly but grew tense as Kakashi next spoke.

'Who says I'm not a rouge ninja?'

'Because A. you would have killed us straight off and B. What reason would you have for betraying the village and killing innocent people?'

'People don't always need a good reason to betray their village, or kill innocent people, Do they Sasuke?' Sasuke glared at him with such hatred that you were actually slightly scared, 'You're not going to let another person die are you Sasuke, _Uchiha' _Sasuke glared at the floor

'Sasuke! Listen to me! He's playing with your head, I have no idea what he's talking about but don't listen to him!'

Sasuke looked at you, then the bell, then Kakashi and finally the kunai against your neck. He nodded once

'Just go! Go help Sakura & Naruto, trust me, he won't kill me.' you assured him, he nodded and jumped off.

'Are you really sure I'm not going to kill you? Or did you just say that to save Sasuke?'

'Honestly? I have no idea whether you're going to kill me or not, But if you were really a rouge ninja, why would you be interested in our lunch anyway?'

'Good point, maybe I was just testing him to see if he believed me or not & then I would have killed you anyway?'

'Maybe, but in that case you'd probably have then killed Sasuke and hey, one life lost is better than two right?'

He laughed and let you go, 'You seem to be the only one who has understood the true meaning of this test, You were even prepared to sacrifice yourself to save your team mate, very good. But, though you tried to make the rest of them listen to you they still felt like doing things by themselves, their own way.'

You just stood there, looking at the laughing man before you who had threatened to kill you a second ago, you sighed and ran a hand through your hair, 'God, being a ninja sure is stressful.'

'Does that mean you still don't trust me because I threatened to kill you?'

'duh' you replied to this

'Then that is good! Never trust a previous enemy or stranger immediately.'

You nodded your head, looking down at the floor, then, acting so quickly he shouldn't have had time to move, you thrust out your hand and grabbed hold of the rest of the bells, but Kakashi grabbed your wrist, twisting it round, you tightened your grip even though his hand was pulling at the cut he had made earlier and it stung like hell.

'Another thing' he said through gritted teeth as you were both struggling to get the bells, 'What's with that strange scar on your neck'

'Oh that? I just fell over and cut myself.' you lied

'Uh-huh? And that's why it's shaped very carefully like a cloud?'

'It was on a biscuit cutter shaped like a cloud' you said, lamely improvising

'How did you manage to fall on it so perfectly that it cut a perfect cloud?'

'Just luck I guess, or chance, whatever. It's no big deal.'

'Hmm' he said, kicking out his leg, it connected painfully with your stomach, but you still refused to let go of the bells, 'Persistent aren't we?' he said as you tried once again to pull your arm out of his grip.

You didn't bother replying, instead you reached into your back pocket and tried to grab a kunai, but Kakashi saw you and grabbed your other arm. Your lip twitched in annoyance but an idea suddenly struck you; You closed your eyes, widening your senses & looking with your "vision". You could feel the chakra in Kakashi's body, you could feel the point of the kunai in your pocket, you slowly lifted it up and-

'RRRRRRRING!' the bell sounded somewhere in the distance, in your surprise you opened your eyes and let go of the technique.

'Time's up.'

You glared at him and let go of the bells,

'Well, If you'll excuse me I have to go stop Naruto.' he said and disappeared in a puff of smoke

'What is it with ninja's and smoke?' you asked yourself out loud, then sighed again and began to walk back to the three tree stumps. When you arrived you saw Naruto tied to one of them & Sakura & Sasuke sitting either side of him, Sasuke still had the bell clenched tightly in his hand. As you approached Kakashi turned round to look at you.

'Oh good, Everyone's here,' he paused while you went to sit down next to Sakura, seeing as she would have killed you if you'd sat next to Sasuke. 'Now, who's going to keep the bell and pass?' he asked, looking at Sasuke. Sakura turned to him in shock, obviously she hadn't known he'd gotten a bell.

'Sasuke! You're soo amazing! How did you ever get a bell?' She asked, though you could tell she was worrying about something, Sasuke glared at her, then at you, then back at the bell again. Sakura looked at you confused, 'Wait? Sasuke did get a bell, didn't he?'

'Yeh, he is holding it, duh.' you replied, looking towards the bell in Sasuke's hand,

'Well yeh, but...' she trailed off, not sure what to say

'So, who's it going to be?' Kakashi asked

'Well, whoever got the bell should keep it, shouldn't they?' Sakura began, 'But maybe none of us should get it and we should just try again next yea-' she stopped herself as Sasuke turned to glare at her again, 'Or not' she finished

'Ok, whoever got the bell should pass, is that right?' Kakashi asked, looking at all of you.

None of you said anything.

'Ok, what about this, let's say you got all three bells, who wouldn't get a bell?' Kakashi asked, looking at Sasuke again, who avoided his eyes

'Well, It should be Naruto!' Sakura exclaimed, 'He cheated!' Sasuke nodded.

'True, what do you think Kyouri?'

'If we got all three bells, then I wouldn't take one, 'cos I never wanted to be a ninja, whereas that's all you guys know & want' The other three looked at you surprised, you rolled your eyes, 'What? It's not that amazing.' They looked back at the floor again, 'Anyway, they all deserve it more than I do; they've been training all their lives.'

'Hmm, that may be true, and yet, you're the only one I would pass.' Kakashi continued, not looking at any of you, you sighed as you knew he'd been about to say that.

Sasuke glared at you, Naruto & Sakura looked confused.

'That's not fair!' Naruto said, 'We should all pass! We all tried our best'

'Mm, but you missed the point of the exercise!'

'Huh? I thought it was just to get the bells?' Naruto asked, and the others nodded

'Idiots! Do you really expect we'd put a Genin up against a Jounin? Why do you think you were put into three or four man cells?' Kakashi replied, exasperation in his voice.

'I don't know! How should we know why you chose that?'

'Isn't it obvious? Teamwork! Naruto; you do everything by yourself! Sasuke; you thought you were too good for the others! Sakura; You fixated yourself with Sasuke and completely ignored Naruto who was right in front of you!' he paused to glare at them 'The only one who tried to work as a team was Kyouri! And Sakura, when she told you to stay put you went running off after Sasuke! Naruto, you ignored her and decided to try and eat everyone's lunch by yourself! Sasuke, you dismissed her advice even after she explained why! You honestly thought you could beat me by yourself?' Sasuke glared at the floor, 'And when I threatened to kill her you refused to give me the bell, you would have sacrificed someone else's life just so you could pass some test?'

'I wouldn't have let you kill her! She told me you wouldn't kill her, and you didn't!' Sasuke retorted, anger suddenly high in his voice, death was obviously a touchy subject for him, you wondered why.

'She only said that so, in case I was going to kill her, you wouldn't get killed as well, isn't that right Kyouri?' Kakashi replied smoothly, turning to you. You nodded your head and the others stared at you.

'You'd have risked your life to save me?' Sasuke asked, staring at you, the normal hatred that was there when he looked at you had gone, replaced with an empty confusion.

'Well, yeh. I guess. But if he was trying to kill me, he would have done so either way, whether you'd run off of not.'

Sasuke glared at the floor again, but just before he broke eye contact you saw some long buried memory playing behind his eyes. Ok, death & running away, what had happened in his past to make him react so much to those two things?

'So then Sasuke, who's going to get the bell?' Kakashi asked again, looking at him, Sasuke's grip tightened on the bell and his eyes narrowed as he stared at the floor, eventually he relaxed 'None of us.' he relented, defeated. He tossed the bell at Kakashi who caught it.

'WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?" Naruto exclaimed outraged, Sasuke glared at him and he shut up.

'Kyouri, you weren't perfect either. You'd have been far better off if you'd kept everyone with you; a team works best as a team, and for that to happen you need to work _together._ You should have explained your full plan to everyone, rather than just keep it to yourself. That way, if you got captured or killed, the rest of the team could still complete the mission.' Kakashi pointed out. You nodded. 'Hm, Well after lunch I'll give you another three hours to get the remaining bells. You can keep this one.' he said, throwing the bell back at Sasuke who caught it again. 'It will be harder, so eat up. And no-one is to feed Naruto, if anyone does then that person will automatically fail.' with that he disappeared again.

'Fine! I can go without food for days, Weeks if I need to!' Naruto said defiantly but his face fell as his stomach growled.

'Here Naruto, have mine' Sasuke said, holding out his lunch to Naruto

'No! Sasuke! What are you doing? Kakashi sensei sai-' Sakura started

'I know what he said, But if Naruto is weak & hungry then the team is weak, & if the team is weak then we won't get the bells'

Sakura looked at the floor then held up her lunch to Naruto, 'No, have my lunch. Sasuke eats more than me & I'm on a diet anyway' she said, smiling at him.

'S-Sakura?' Naruto stuttered out

'Just take it!'

'I can't, my hands are tied. You'll have to feed me.'

'Grrr! Naruto!" Sakura burst out, fire burning in her eyes

'Just do it! Kakashi could come back any second' Sasuke warned.

'Fine, but this is the only time I'll _ever_ do this! You got it!'

'Yeh I got it' Naruto replied, smiling all over his face, Sakura began to put food in his mouth. You sighed, and, grabbing one more rice ball from your own lunch, pushed it in front of Sakura, she looked down at it questioningly.

'Have it, I'm stuffed'

'But-' she began but you cut her off

'If you've been on a diet then chances are you're hungrier than the rest of us, and I normally skip breakfast anyway.' you replied truthfully. You took a bite into your rice ball and almost choked on it as there was a crack of thunder and Kakashi appeared, glaring at all of you.

'YOU! You all disobeyed my orders! Now, you must pay the PRICE!' He said dramatically

'Yes we disobeyed your orders! But we did it because Naruto needs to eat if the team is going to be strong, if we want to beat you!' You turned your head to look at Sasuke. Sakura nodded her head and you turned round to look at Kakashi too.

'Is that so! WELL ANY LAST WORDS?' He asked, thunder clouds grouped round his head and there was a flash of lightening, 'BECAUSE YOU ALL...' he paused 'have passed' he finished, smiling at all of you, you sweat dropped.

'Huh?' Sakura asked as the storm clouds cleared,

'You all passed' Kakashi repeated, still smiling.

'But, I don't understand'

'Every group of ninja before you have listened to my orders, they were unable to think for themselves. Ninja have to find the hidden meanings behind the hidden meaning & see through deception'

'WOOOT! I'M A NINJA! NINJA, NINJA, NINJAAAAAAA!' Naruto sang, beaming from ear to ear.

'WHEY!' Sakura said, jumping up

'Hn' Sasuke said smiling. You smiled at all of them, they were a bunch of stuck up, arrogant or boy mad imbeciles, but maybe they weren't all bad. Maybe.


	8. Fateful Encounter 2

You awoke to the sound of someone yelling in your ear, and pulling at your arm.

'Come on sis! Someone's at the door for you!'

You opened your eyes to see your sister, one hand on hip & the other one trying to yank you out of bed.

'Huh? Who's at the door? Can't you get Dad to answer it? It's my day off for god's sake! Do you know what time I had to get up yesterday!' You mumbled pulling the covers back over your head

'Urgh! You're so lazy sis, I don't know how you'd ever make a half decent ninja!'

'Mm, whatever' you replied, not really listening. You gasped as she pulled the covers off from you and the cold morning air hit you. You glared at her but she just smiled triumphantly at you, 'You're evil, you know?' was all you said as you swung your legs out of bed and rubbed your eyes. You stood up, towering over her, seeing as you were more than double her age. You smiled back down at her evilly, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously then tried to turn around and make a run for it, but you'd already swept her off her feet.

'And now for your punishment for waking me up so early,...' you said smirking at her, your tickled her and she squealed, giggling her head off.

'Sis..Sister' she said catching her breath between her giggles,'St..stop,... ..Pl..pleas-' she squealed and laughed even louder as you tickled her foot; that was her weak spot.

You stopped and turned abruptly when you heard a sudden noise at the doorway, to see Sasuke, Sakura & Naruto standing there, they all sweat dropped

'We came up 'cos It sounds like someone was being tortured up here.' Sasuke explained, one eyebrow raised.

'She is! She's torturing me! Help me!' Your sister replied, you looked at her and grabbed her foot again, she squealed before you'd even started tickling.

Eventually you let her down and she took a few steps back glaring at you, you smiled at her fondly.

'Anyway, If you're done tormenting Konohagakure's children, Kakashi wants us for a mission'

'Huh? I thought we weren't supposed to have any missions until tomorrow?' You asked

'Yeh, but there's been an increase in D ranked missions lately & all the higher ninja are busy with more important things.'

'Kay, do we know what we're doing?' you asked, they sweat dropped again, you looked at them questioningly, 'Well..?' you prompted

'Well-' Sakura began but Naruto cut her off

'We have to find some old lady's bloody cat!'

'Well, that sure sounds like fun.' you replied sighing, your sister looked at you confused. You smiled at her, 'You think you've got it bad? School's going to be like a theme park compared to how fun this mission is going to be' She smiled at you, 'Well, talking of school, shouldn't you be getting ready? Your lunch is on the kitchen counter' She nodded and ran out the room to get ready, you turned your attention back to the others as she came skidding round the corner again

'Oh, and thanks sis!' she said and rushed off again, you smiled and shook your head slightly.

'Right, give me five minutes and I'll be ready' you said, addressing them.

Sasuke nodded, 'We'll be waiting outside' they walked out of your room and you shut the door, You quickly grabbed some clothes and put them on, your hair would have to do. You ran to the bathroom and washed your face & brushed your teeth. You quickly outlined your eyes with eyeliner and proceeded down the stairs, shouting as you left the house,

'Hitomi! Get Ren & Dad up! Tell them I've gone on a mission so I won't be back till later.'

'KAY!' she shouted back, you shut the door and walked over to where Naruto & the others were standing.

'Let's go' Sasuke said and started walking. You reached the edge of a group of trees where Kakashi was waiting

'Sorry for the short notice guys.' he said, 'The cat was last seen here, It has a bow tied around its ear, find it.'

You nodded and followed the others as they ran into the woods.

'We'll split up, if you find a cat radio in and the rest of us will come' Sasuke said as he handed out ear pieces, you nodded and inserted one into your ear. 'Me & Sakura will take the trees & Kyouri & Naruto stick to the ground.'

'Got it!' Naruto said, you & Sakura nodded and you all set off.

You were running along the ground, copying Naruto's way of running & finding it was quicker than the way you would run in P.E. You branched out left & Naruto went right.

After awhile you heard a twig snap somewhere to the side of you, it couldn't be Naruto; he should be way out of hearing range now, unless the idiot had started to get disorientated. You were just about to turn your head and check when you felt something brush past you and a small breath of wind blew the hair away from the side of your face, you spun, eyes darting round, hand reaching into your leg pack for a kunai. You eyes found him the same time your hand found the kunai. You turned to face him, he had long black hair and yellow, snake like eyes. You touched your finger to your ear to activate the microphone on your ear piece so you could inform the others but found it wasn't there. You looked across at the man and realised he was holding it in his hand.

'Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you.' he said as you tensed and readied yourself into a guard position, 'I'm just here to talk & to offer you help.'

'Help? Why do I need help?' you demanded glaring at him. He smiled but it was the type of smile a cat might give a bird that it had just caught; a hungry smile.

'I believe you have been contacted by a group recently'

'You mean my team?' you asked although you knew he didn't.

'Don't play stupid, you know who I mean, the person who cut that scar into your neck.' he said, you wondered how he knew about the scar on your neck then realised he must have seen it when he'd taken your earpiece. You didn't reply, just stared at him 'Well, I can imagine the type of thing they told you, or asked of you and I want to help you find a way out of it.' he waited for you to reply, when you didn't he continued 'You do want help don't you, or do you want your family to die?'

You narrowed your eyes at him but spoke, 'They won't kill them if I give them what they want.'

'Trust me my dear, they will kill your family eventually. They'll keep asking you to do things for them and eventually they'll ask you something you can't do & they will kill your family. So you would have betrayed all those people and your family still would have died.'

'Who says you're not just as bad as they are?'

'Hm, well it is true that some people would say I'm bad. But that's only because they don't know my side of the story. Ask any of my followers and they will tell you how I rescued them & helped them, some out of similar situations as you.'

'How do you suppose to help me?'

'I will give you the power to protect your family. It is power you may be able to get anyway, but that will take time, time you do not have. But I, I can give you it all now, so your family can live.'

'But something that powerful is sure to have side effects, bad side effects.'

'Yes, you are a clever one aren't you. I saw your performance yesterday with Kakashi, did you know you're the only one, ever, to figure out the meaning of that exercise? And you did it so quickly! No wonder you were top of your class, despite only having been there for a few days.'

You just stared at him, slightly creeped out.

'Yes, I know all about that. It was wrong, very wrong of the hokage to restrict you from ninja training. Obviously you have a passion for it and you are beyond talented, a prodigy child even and yet,' he paused for effect, 'they smothered your ability, not allowing your brilliance to develop. But I know how that feels, I too was denied my rightful place in the leaf village, they thought I needed to be restricted.' he shook his head sadly 'So I left this village & its suffocating rules, I started my own village, one which will eventually be more powerful than any village before!' he looked directly at you & smiled, you kept your own expression neutral 'And with your talents the dream will become a reality. You wouldn't have to hide your skills which you long so much to use; in my village no child will have their abilities stunted, no child shall have to hide & be ashamed of their talents, especially when they love them so much. Like you.' he added these last words as an obvious attempt to spark some form of emotional response from you, make you overlook rationality & listen blindly to his words. That sure as hell wasn't going to happen.

'There was a good reason I wasn't allowed to train as a ninja; My powers would have been too much of a threat in a young child's uncontrolled body, it was also to avoid me being an outcast & becoming hated & seen as a monster! Furthermore the reason they didn't train me was because they thought if I was untrained I would be no use to evil ninja organisations!'

'Is that what they told you? Well, the first part is true, they stopped you from developing your skills because they were scared, scared you would become too powerful.'

'And they had every right to be!' you retorted bitterly.

'Do you really think that? Do you really think people should be scared of you? Do you think there's anything to be scared of?'

'No I don't! But I can see why they would! I'm not like you, I don't hate the leaf village because they stopped me from being a ninja, and I don't hate the hokage either! He did what he thought was best for his village.'

'Then who do you hate?' he asked simply

'I-, I don't know.' you admitted thinking over your life, the people who had killed your mum, did you hate them? No, you didn't; because at the time you could feel their fear & their hunger. They were from the land in the waves, a poor nation where people hardly got enough to eat, Could you hate them for trying to survive? And your mother had killed one of them, you could feel their despair and panic when they'd seen their fallen comrade, he was probably one of their brothers or a lifelong friend, they would obviously want revenge. Although your abilities helped you, sometimes they restricted you. You were pulled out of your thoughts by a buzz coming from your ear piece, you looked up and the guy looked at you.

'Think about it. If you change your mind come to the edge of the village and write your name on a piece of paper and tie it to a bird's leg then set it free, I'll find you. And remember, I could help you save your family from their certain death.' he chucked the ear piece at you and disappeared. You shoved it in your ear and just caught the last of Naruto's words;

'-the flare'

You looked up to see a red flare in the sky, you headed towards it, burying your thoughts of that man until later, when you could think straight without being distracted.


	9. Here We Go

'NO! I want a proper mission this time! Not some crappy cat rescuing, baby sitting job!' Naruto shouted at the hokage,

'He has a point' Sasuke pointed out

'No, the point of all of this is to make sure you can work well as a team before we send you out on any really dangerous missions' Kakashi said, annoyed.

'We can handle any of those missions! Can't we guys?' Naruto said, looking at the rest of you.

'Hmm, Well we could try a C ranked mission. You'll be protecting a bridge builder on his journey to the land of the Waves' the Hokage admitted.

'Yeh! Now that's what I'm talking about!'

'Send him in' He called to someone outside the door, it opened, and a large man stepped in.

'What? Who are these little brats?'

'They're who'll be protecting you.'

'That lot? But they're just kids!'

'Don't worry, You'll have one of our jounin with you as well, Hatake Kakashi.' at this Kakashi stepped forward, the bridge builder raised an eyebrow,

'I'm expecting them all to protect me with their lives! And I still don't see how you're expecting me to put my life in the hands of these brats, Especially that short one with the idiotic expression on his face.'

'Hahaha!' Naruto laughed,' Who's the short one with the idiotic look on his fa...?' He trailed off as he looked around and realised it was him, he did an anime fall then got up and tried to attack the bridge builder. You instinctively reached out your hand and grabbed him.

'Naruto,' Kakashi sighed, 'You can't attack the client, It just doesn't work that way.'

Naruto ignored him and continued to struggle, you sighed, twisting his arm round,

'OW! What did you do that for!' he demanded accusingly, you sighed and look at him,

'To get you to shut up & be still.' You let go of him and he stood up, disgruntled.

You turned your gaze on Kakashi,

'How long will we be away on this mission?'

'No more than a few days, I would expect.' he answered, though he didn't sound very certain, you nodded anyway.

'I'll be right back. I need to tell my family where I'm going. Otherwise my brother & sister will panic.' you explained, heading for the door. The hokage & Kakashi nodded their heads and you were out of the door and down the corridor.

You exited the building and walked quickly back to your house, breaking into a run as soon as you were out of sight of the main building. You opened your front door and stepped into your house, shutting it quickly behind you. You sank to the floor, clutching your head. Your nails digging into your skin, you'd recognised the sign on that man's bag, it was that of the land of the waves. You couldn't go back there, not after what had happened to your mum. You felt sick even now as you relived the memories, you looked up and suddenly realised this flash back was far more real than it should be. You felt detached from your body somehow, you were looking down on the form of a collapsed woman, you could feel your blood pumping round your body, your breathing was heavy. You reached out a hand to touch the motionless figure, slowly you lifted up a stand of her hair, which had fallen over her face, concealing her features. As you lifted it up and looked into the unstaring eyes of your mother you screamed, and with that scream you broke the illusion.

You lay, curled up in a ball in front of your door, your breathing was heavy, your mind thick & fuddled and your stomach felt sick. You uncurled yourself and pushed up so you were on your hands and knees. You struggled to your feet only to find your hands were suddenly pinned to your back & a kunai knife was in front of your throat before you even knew what was happening

'Just to make sure you don't forget, collect any information on their fighting styles & techniques.'

And as quickly as he had come he was gone. You spun round but of course, he wasn't there. You sighed and ran upstairs, grabbing your bag and filling it with everything you would need, you then left a note for your family on the fridge as that would be the first place they would look, it read;

"I'm on a ninja mission to the land of the waves for a few days. Don't know exactly when I'll be back but I won't be too long. Look after yourselves. Love, Kyouri. P.s~ Tell Ikari that I've gone.'

That done you left your house, making sure to lock the door & take a spare key with you, you set off for the gates of Konohagakure.

As you approached you saw the five figures of the others waiting for you, it looked as though Naruto was once again trying to attack the bridge builder, Kakashi looked up as you neared and the others followed his gaze,

'Everyone ready?' Kakashi asked, you all nodded.

'About time!' The bridge builder put in, you sighed, this wasn't going to be fun.


	10. Something Smells Fishy

Later that day as you were walking, you noticed that the path seemed vaguely familiar, a blurry memory seen through a small child's eyes.

You now knew the bridge builder's name was Tazuna and he lived in the Land of Waves, he was moaning about it not having rained for days and the fact that he was missing the water that surrounded his home town. As he was saying this you noticed a puddle on the ground, at first you thought nothing of it but then it suddenly clicked in with what Tazuna had said not moments before.

'Erh.. Kakashi sensei?' you began, he turned his head to look back at you

'Yes Kyouri?'

'How come there was a puddle back there if it hasn't rained for da-' you were cut off by two huge chains suddenly shooting past you and wrapping themselves round Kakashi, they pulled and he was gone in a shower of blood. You winced, this was too much like last time.

You froze & the two ninjas who had shot the chains took advantage of that, rushing towards you. You could only stare at them in fear, unable to will your body into moving. At the last second you felt something ram into the side of you and knock you out the way, you looked across to see Sasuke lying next to you on the floor.

'Thanks' you managed, Sasuke looked at you and nodded, he got up and rushed over to help Naruto out. You got up as well and stood defensively around the bridge builder with Sakura. Sasuke trapped the two ninjas's chains and broke them, you noted their mist village head bands, but they rushed forward again without hesitation, one heading for Sakura the other for Naruto. Sakura held out a kunai and Sasuke jumped in front of her, you threw a procession of shuriken at the one heading for Naruto, you rolled away from the bridge builder as the mist ninja turned his full attention on you. Suddenly your vision was enhanced with richer colours, you could sense his chakra, feel it pulsing round his body. He ran at you and you dropped into a guard position, ready to block his attack as best you could. But thankfully his assault was stopped short by none other than,...Kakashi! He held both ninja in a headlock, your eyes darted to where the remains of Kakashi's body should have been, only to see a pile of cut up logs. You looked back towards him with a new sense of respect. He must have also noticed the puddle, somehow made a shadow clone without anyone noticing, done a replacement jutsu & had moved so fast just now you hadn't seen him until he had stopped, And he'd done it so smoothly, he'd made it look so easy! And Sasuke, he'd been completely in control, even Sakura had done better than you & Naruto. If Sasuke hadn't saved you, you would have actually have died just then. It was quite a scary prospect, too scary in fact to think about properly; leaving behind your family to cope with another death, leaving your brother & sister all alone, & Your Dad would no doubt blame himself for it, seeing as he had made you become a ninja.

'Sorry Naruto I didn't mean for you to get hurt, I just wasn't expecting you to freeze up like that. Well done Sasuke, very smooth, you too Sakura, & Kyouri, though you froze at the beginning you recovered well.'

Him, Tazuna & Sakura walked off, you helped Naruto to his feet and started walking as well, you turned round at Sasuke voice to see him looking back at Naruto,

'Hey,' he said, addressing Naruto

'Yeh?'

'You're not hurt are you?' he asked in a mocking tone, 'Scaredy cat'

'Argh! SASUKEE!-' Naruto said, glaring at him

'Naruto!, Stand still. These ninja have poison in their claws, we need to take it out of you quickly' Kakashi cautioned

'AHHHHHHH!' Was Naruto's response to this

'We'll have to open the wound to remove the poison, It's in your blood so don't move around too much, that will just spread it. And, by the way Mr. Tazuna,'

'Yeh what?' He asked, suddenly panicked & defensive, you narrowed your eyes.

'We need to talk' Kakashi finished, not looking at him.

You continued walking until you reached a clearing, there you stopped & Kakashi tied the ninja to a tree.

'They're chunin from the village hidden in the mist. They specialise in relentless attack, they keep fighting no matter what.' he stated

'How did you know about our ambush?' One of mist ninja asked

'Well, as Kyouri here pointed out, There was a puddle, on a clear day, when it hasn't rained in weeks.'

'In that case, why'd you leave it for the genin to do the fighting?' Tazuna asked, back to his usual self.

'I could have taken them out quickly, but then I would have learned nothing, this way I found out who their target was & what they were after.'

'Oh, I get it' you said, as the clues clicked into place, 'You wanted to see if they were after us, like ninja attacking ninja, In which case it could be a threat to our village, or whether they were after him,' at this you indicated Tazuna.

'Exactly, and when he put in his request he asked for standard protection, against robbers & highway men, he didn't say there'd be ninja after him, hunting him down.' he paused to glare at Tazuna meaningfully, the bridge builder hung his head, 'If we'd known that we'd have classed it as a B ranked mission or higher and charged the appropriate fee. You probably have your reasons, but lying to us is not acceptable & we are now beyond the scope of this mission.'

'We're just genin,' Sakura added, 'This is way to advanced for our level, and I really think we should get the poison out of Naruto's hand as soon as possible, back in our village we can take him to a doctor.'

'Hmm' he said thoughtfully, Naruto looked up, worried. 'Naruto's hand could become a problem, I guess we should go back'

'Argh!,' Naruto said, raising a kunai, your eyes widened, predicting what he was going to do,

'No Naruto! That wi-' he'd stabbed himself in the hand before you could finish '-hit a major artery' you said sighing but he didn't hear you, he was too busy trying to ignore the pain, the rest of them gasped.

'Why am I so different? I trained so hard!" _I swear I will never back down again! I will never freeze up again! I will never run away! And most importantly, I will never lose to Sasuke_ " Apon this wound I swear it! And Bridge builder, I will finish this mission and get you to your bridge! Don't worry, I'll be fine!'

About halfway through his sentence he stopped talking, and yet you could still hear him, it was as though you could hear his thoughts, but It was more than that, you could sense his feelings, the determination, the anger, even the sad loneliness & fear that hid behind the other emotions.

'Erh...? Naruto, that was really cool how you took the poison out and all, but if you lose anymore blood, you're going to die' Kakashi pointed out, sounding completely calm despite his words.

There was a short moment of silence while Naruto took in this new information,

'Good idea to stop the bleeding now, seriously' Kakashi added and Naruto erupted;

'NOOOOOO! I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIEEE! FOR IT ALL TO END LIKE THIS!'

'Just show me your hand' Kakashi said in an exasperated tone.

'AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!'

'God Naruto, you're such an idiot'

He stopped and Kakashi practically grabbed his hand, you watched him as he tied the bonds on the wound, you noted that it was already starting to heal despite the fact the kunai had been a good few centimetres into his hand, but, taking one look at Kakashi's face, you also had the tact not to mention it.

'Erhh..? Sensei? You're scaring me, you have a really serious look on your face, am I going to be ok?' Naruto asked, his voice slightly shaky

'Hm? Oh, yeh, You should be fine' he replied, finishing tying up the bonds

You all set off towards the edge of the land, you could tell this because you could hear the faint sounds of waves washing up on the shore.

You reached the sea line to see a boat waiting for you, Tazuna & Naruto were both about to step on but Sakura shot one hand out in front of them

'Urh-hum? Isn't it ladies first?' she asked making to step into the boat, but you slid your way in front of her,

'Exactly' you replied, turning to face her, 'That's why I should go first' you finished stepping into the boat with a triumphant smirk, she glared at you, then turned round to see Sasuke smiling in amusement and quickly shot her head back round to you, giving you a look that could have knocked someone dead, luckily enough you weren't looking at her anymore, which of course, only annoyed her further.

Naruto came and sat down next to you,

'Erh, Kyouri? I think Sakura might be mad at you' he said uncertainly, you laughed,

'You think?' you replied, one eyebrow raised,

'So much for my hope that you'd bring everyone together as a team' Kakashi said sighing, you grinned and returned to looking out at the sea.


	11. Prove Your Worth

The engine was now turned off & the boatman was paddling, Naruto had moved to sit at the front of the boat so you were now sitting next to Tazuna.

The fog had started to grow heavy and thick, you noticed Sakura shiver after a few minutes of this

'This fog's so thick' she said in a hushed whisper, 'You can't see anything'

'The bridge isn't far now' the boatman said, you didn't turn round 'the land of waves is just ahead.'

As if on cue, the beginnings of a bridge started to appear out of the fog.

'WOW! IT'S HUGE!' Naruto exclaimed, oblivious to the fact that everyone had been speaking in whispers.

'Quiet!' the boatman said in a harsh whisper, 'I told you no noise! Why do you think we're travelling like this? No engine, amongst the deep fog; so they don't see us!'

'Mr. Tazuna' Kakashi began, 'The men who are after you, I need to know why, otherwise I'll have to end this mission as soon as we've dropped you ashore.'

'Hm, I have no choice but to tell you, No, I want you to know the truth'

You'd turned round to look at him now, and so had the others.

'Like you said,' he continued, 'this has gone way beyond the scope of the mission. The person who is after me is a very short man who casts a very long & deadly shadow.'

'deadly shadow?' Kakashi asked, Tazuna just looked at him, 'Hm, Who is it?'

'You know him, well at least I'm sure you know of him, he's one of the wealthiest men in the world, the shipping icon, Gato.'

'Huh?' Kakashi said surprised, the rest of you also looked shocked, Gato was a well known business man, but people had often wondered where he'd got all his money from, there had been rumours of drugs & killings for a while, but eventually they had been silenced. 'Gato? of Gato transport? But he's a well known business man.' he finished

'It's true that Gato is a very famous icon for a company, but behind the scenes he deals in drugs & weapons, using gangs & ninja. It was about one year ago that Gato first came here, he used his vast wealth to completely take over our transport & shipping industry, Anyone who tried to stand in his way simply disappeared. In an island nation a man who controls the sea controls everything from finance to government. But the one things he fears is the bridge, if and when it is finished it will connect us to the main land, taking away all of Gato's power over us, we will be a free nation again, free to rebuild our country & live our lives. And, as I am the Master bridge builder he will do everything in his power to kill me & stop me finishing the bridge.'

'That means, those guys we fought in the forest, they were working for Gato?' Sasuke asked

'Mmm' Kakashi agreed then turned his attention back to Tazuna, 'I don't understand. If you knew he was dangerous & you knew he'd send high level ninja to eliminate us, why didn't you say?'

'Because the land of waves is a small poverish nation, even our nobles have very little money, and the common people, like me, don't have enough money for a B or A ranked mission, If you end this mission when you drop me ashore they will kill me before I even reach my house, let alone the bridge.' he looked at the ground & you rolled your eyes. Cue sob story. 'But, that's not your problem. Of course my sweet little grandson will be upset, he'll probably cry "Granddad! Granddad! I want my Granddad!" Oh! and of course my daughter will blame the ninja of the leaves, denouncing & blaming you for letting her father die at the hands of ruthless killers & forever condemning her country. She will then, no doubt, go on to live her life in sorrow & morning. Oh well, it's not your fault, forget it.'

You sighed, always with the guilt trip, in fact, you felt less like helping him now that he'd tried such a low sneaky technique than you had before. But, as you saw the looks on everyone else's faces, it became apparent that they didn't feel the same so you weren't going to waste your breath.

'Well,' Kakashi stated, 'I guess we have no other choice, we'll have to keep guarding you.'

'Awh, I'm very grateful' he said in mock surprise, you rolled your eyes and went back to staring into the fog, Thinking about your friends at home & what they'd be doing; certainly not on an A ranked ninja mission putting their lives on the line for a manipulative bridge builder and trying to defend him from one of the richest men in the world, not to mention having the future of a country resting in their hands. No, they were probably at home by now, doing homework or chores & going on the computer, you sighed, thinking about the life, or more the world, you'd left behind when you'd agreed (been forced) to become a ninja.

While you'd been thinking the small boat had grown ever nearer to the edge of the land of waves and before long the boatman confirmed what was already obvious to all of you when you looked at the scenery,

'We're nearing the shore,' were the words he spoke, 'Tazuna, we've been very fortunate, no-one has noticed us so far.'

'Well done' Tazuna replied simply as you entered a tunnel and everything went pitch black, you immediately reached for a kunai, ready to draw it if anything happened, as you exited the tunnel you relaxed and took in the views.

It was a typical island village; a lot of water, a few houses and not much else. You got off the boat and stepped onto some wooden planking next to a house

'That's as far as I go, good luck' the boatman said, already pulling away

'Alright, thanks for getting us this far & taking such a risk in doing so.'

'Mmm, Just be careful'

You all watched as he pulled away and sped off into the distance, this time going full fledge with the engine, eventually Tazuna turned back to face all of you.

'Alright, take me to my home, & I mean get me there in one piece'

You all turned to leave, Naruto & Sasuke in the front, then Kakashi, Sakura, Tazuna & finally, you, at the back. You walked slowly, remembering the time you had come here as a child, that was of course before Gato had come here & you & your family had enjoyed a nice weekend away. There were still some people living in poverty even back then, but it wasn't half as depressing as it was now. Even here, on the outskirts, you could see the clear sign of poverty, though the others weren't so aware of it; you'd taken geography & politics at your school & you knew what the main signs were.

You walked further, into a forest, you followed a path but you could tell that everyone was aware and looking out for an attack this time, especially Naruto, if not a bit _too _aware.

He ran in front of everyone and looked around, his eyes narrowed, and suddenly he drew a kunai knife and threw it into a bush, the rest of you stood there with despairing looks on your faces.

'Oh, it was just a mouse' he said trying to sound cool, you sighed, you could see where this was heading, and sure enough, here came Sakura, right on cue

'Just a Mouse?" Yeah right! You're so obvious it's embarrassing!'

then Kakashi with the lecture...

'Naruto! Those are kunai knives, not toys, you can't just throw them around all over the place! They're dangerous'

and finally Tazuna,

'ARGHH! STOP TRYING TO SCARE ME YOU STUPID LITTLE BRAT!'

and of course Naruto was oblivious to all of this and instead continued with his stupidness, looking around for more things to throw his kunai at, he eventually decided on another bush, which admittedly you had heard a noise from,

'Right! That does it Naruto.' Sakura said, whacking him round the head

'AH! What'd you do that for! Someone really is following us, I mean it!'

'Yeh right! Quit lying and acting like a dumb kid!' she continued to yell, Kakashi had started to walk further into the bush, you followed him, to discover a poor white snow rabbit lying just underneath a kunai knife, knocked out from shock, Sakura came up behind you.

'Naruto! Look what you did!'

'AH! a Rabbit!' he exclaimed, pushing passed you and picking up the rabbit, 'I'm sorry little bunny!'

'Hmm, That's strange' you said, thinking over it.

'Yes, it is' Kakashi agreed

'Huh? What's strange?' Sasuke asked,

'That's a snow rabbit'

'Oh yeh, Snow rabbits are only white in the winter, but it's the middle of summer.' Sakura said in realistation

'Mm, which can mean only one thing, this rabbit was raised indoors, which means it would have been used in a substitution jutsu' Kakashi expanded.

'Naruto was right? Someone _was _following us?' Sakura asked surprised

Kakashi nodded, then his eyes widened and he shouted, 'Look out! Duck!'

You all threw yourselves on the floor as the huge sword came flying just above your heads, during which time the bunny escaped.

You stood up quickly and drew a kunai, looking up at the man balancing on the sword which was now stuck rather determinedly into the tree. He made it look so effortless! He had such amazing balance, just that small fact told you he'd be a pretty high level ninja, the other thing that gave it away was the way Kakashi looked at him, obviously he knew this guy, or had heard of him, and, from the look on your sensei's face, he wasn't going to be friendly. The guy wore a pair of trousers & black & white blotted covers on his lower legs & arms, he wore no top & his highly muscled body was in clear view, another factor that warned you about how good he would be.

'Well well' Kakashi began walking forward, looking perfectly comfortable & relaxed, though you guessed this was just an act, 'If it isn't Momochi Zabuzza, rouge ninja of the hidden mist.' your grip on your kunai tightened when he said "rouge ninja".

Naruto made to run at him but Kakashi's hand shot out to stop him,

'You're in the way, get back'

'But why? I can so take this guy'

'Naruto, you're an idiot if you can't see this guy is way above our level' you put in,

'Mm, This guy isn't like those other ninja, not even close, He's in a whole other league, If he's our opponent I'll need this' Kakashi raised his hand to his headband, you narrowed your eyes, though you were curious as to what was under his mask, there was obviously a reason he kept it hidden & didn't use it.

'Kakashi of the sharingan eye, Did I get that right?' The guy Kakashi had called Zabuzza asked, this meant nothing to you, but you could tell Sasuke knew what he was talking about from his reaction, 'I'll let some of you live, if you hand over the old man.' Zabuzza continued.

'Quick! Mongi formation' Kakashi said, instantly the four of you jumped into place, (you'd just followed the others) 'Protect the bridge builder & stay out of this fight, I taught you teamwork, now it's time to use it.' he finished, lifting up his headband, his eye had a scratch down it and his iris was a bright, brilliant red, around his pupil were three small black spots, they looked just like the eyes of the person who had attacked you that night, but your attacker had black hair with bangs either side of his face, Kakashi had spiky white hair, it couldn't have been him.

'Well, Lucky me, Looks like I get to see the sharingan in action' Zabuzza, turning round, 'This is an honour.'

'Everyone keeps saying sharingan, sharingan, what the hell is sharingan?' Naruto asked.

'Yeh, I was kinda wondering about that as well, though I wasn't going to ask like that' you added sighing, to your surprise Sasuke and not Kakashi answered Naruto's question.

'Sharingan, It's a special power that resides in the eyes of a select few members of the Uchiha bloodline. The user of the sharingan can instantly see & comprehend any genjutsu, ninjustsu or taijutsu & reflect the attack back on the attacker. The sharingan is a special, rare form of do-jutsu, but there's more to the sharingan than that, a lot more'

'You got It right boy, but you only scratched the surface' Zabuzza said, sounding slightly impressed, 'The sharingan can analyse an opponent's technique & then copy it to the smallest detail in an instant.' as he spoke a mist started to gather around you, growing thicker by the second. 'As for you Kakashi, I have orders to destroy you on site; your profile is in our bingo book. It called you the man who'd copied over a thousand jutsus; Kakashi, the copy ninja.'

'Wow' you thought to yourself, 'over a thousand? Is that even possible?'

'WOW! That's sooo cool!' Naruto said, still oblivious to the danger you were all in.

'Enough talking, I need to exterminate the old man, now!' his words cut through your thoughts and you immediately took up a defensive position around Tazuna again, 'So, I'll have to get rid of you first Kakashi?' he said and pulling out his sword, jumped off the tree, moving so fast he disappeared.

'He's over there!' Naruto pointed out.

'Standing on the water' Sakura added needlessly. You turned your head to look at him, he was indeed standing on the water, and it was whipping about his feet dangerously, he had two fingers standing up on each hand, one raised above his head the other in front of his face, once again your vision kicked in and at first the light of his chakra dazzled you slightly, he was sure building up a lot, you wondered if you'd be able to take some away. But just as soon as you'd decided to try, he disappeared in the mist, He was gone from your vision as well, seeing as the mist was combined with chakra you couldn't see much, you forced your eyes to switch back to normal and noticed Sasuke looking at you weirdly.

'What did you just do?' he asked suspiciously, 'Your eyes went all weird'

'Erh, nothing' you replied calmly

'He vanished' Naruto said, pointing out the obvious

'Don't worry, he'll come after me first.' Kakashi said though he didn't sound particularly scared by this.

'But who is he?' Sakura asked

'Momochi Zabuzza, ex-leader of the mist assassination unit, he's a master of the silent killing technique.'

'Silent killing technique? What's that?' Naruto asked

'It's as the name suggests, it happens in an instant, without sound or warning of any kind, before the victim even knows what's going on, they're dead, the sharingan cannot fully neutralise it so don't lower your guard.' he chuckled darkly 'Well I guess if we fail we only loose our lives.'

'How can you say that sensei!' Sakura demanded, sounding more than a bit scared.

As you stood there, the mist growing thicker and thicker by the second, Kakashi gradually fading from sight, you fought with your eyes to keep normal vision, it seemed like whenever you were in danger they immediately switched to your other vision despite whether it helped or not. Eventually Kakashi completely disappeared, you could almost taste the mix of emotions in the air; fear, exhilaration, and blood lust, even as you thought this the deep voice of Zabuzza slipped through the mist, though you couldn't tell from which direction.

'8 points, larynx, spine, lungs, liver, jugular, subclavian artery, kidney, heart. Now, which shall I chose to kill you with?'

Your eyes narrowed and switched to your vision, you searched amidst the rays of colour for a brighter spot; that would be where either Zabuzza or Kakashi was. Then suddenly you saw a patch where a swirl of bright white was coming from but you couldn't determine whether it was Kakashi or Zabuzza.

Luckily your question was soon answered as the mist was blown away by the chakra and standing there was Kakashi, so where was Zabuzza? As your eyes switched back to normal you could feel a new, stronger set of emotions in the air, they were similar emotions to the ones before only intensified, more desperate, you couldn't tell who they were coming from, maybe it was yourself? But you certainly didn't feel that afraid.

'Sasuke! calm down, I'll protect you with my life, all of you. I will not allow my comrades to die, trust me' Kakashi said suddenly, turning round. You guessed from his words that the emotions had been coming from Sasuke.

'I wouldn't be so sure' came the reply, but it was Zabuzza's voice, Right behind you! Before you had time to do anything more then turn around he was in the middle of your formation. You jumped backwards, pulling the bridge builder & Naruto with you but you couldn't reach Sasuke & Sakura as Zabuzza was in the way.

'Shit' you exclaimed as you realised they wouldn't be able to get away in time 'Sasuke! Sakura! Run!'

'Too late, It's over' Zabuzza said, straightening up & opening his eyes. Kakashi turned and somehow managed to block Zabuzza's attack before it could hit either Sasuke or Sakura. It looked as though Kakashi had stabbed Zabuzza with something, but as you looked down you couldn't see any blood, only a small trickle of water. How could that make any sense? Unless, unless ninja could make clones from water!

'Kakashi sensei! Look out!' you called just as the real Zabuzza appeared behind Kakashi.

'He's behind you!' Naruto added, Kakashi turned just as Zabuzza began to swing his sword again.

'DIE!' Zabuzza said, his voice going demonic, you could feel the level of blood lust rising as his blade made contact with Kakashi. You stared, shocked. Was he really dead this time?

Zabuzza gasped and you looked up again to see water falling to the floor in the place of blood, so he hadn't died then.

'Don't move, now it's over. You're finished!' said Kakashi's voice from behind Zabuzza, he was holding a kunai to his neck.

'Alright!' Naruto said & Sakura sighed relieved.

Zabuzza suddenly started laughing, you narrowed your eyes.

'Finished? You really don't get it do you? I'll never be defeated by a mere copycat ninja like are full of surprises though, you'd already copied my water clone jutsu, even in the mist. Very skilfully executed.'

As he was talking your vision switched, you were still looking at Zabuzza, but he looked completely different to Kakashi, the colours were all wrong, and way too bright. And then it hit you, this one must be a clone as well!

'WATCH OUT! That one's a clone as well!" You shouted to Kakashi but it was too late

'Nice try, but I'm not that easy to fool' Zabuzza finished, appearing behind Kakashi, you could tell this was the real Zabuzza because the chakra was flowing around his body and it was different colours, as though there were different kinds of chakra.

The clone in front of Kakashi disappeared and Zabuzza swung his sword, Kakashi ducked, just narrowly avoiding the blade. Zabuzza's sword stuck in the ground but he wasted no time in changing his balance from one leg to the other and kicking Kakashi sharply in the stomach before he could even stand up, sending him flying back towards the water. You forced your vision back to normal as you were really struggling to separate the two bodies. Zabuzza grabbed his sword and ran after Kakashi, but stopped about a meter short of the water, he looked down at the floor to see,

'Makubashi spikes? Trying to slow me down Kakashi? Foolish' he turned around and jumped over them, entering the water in a perfect dive.

'Sensei!' Naruto called out, alarmed.

Kakashi surfaced, and Zabuzza was behind him in seconds.

'Hah! Fool! water prison jutsu!' he said, accompanying his words with hand signs. Kakashi was suddenly lifted out of the water in a circular water ball. 'This prison is made of water but it is stronger than the hardest diamonds, It's hard to fight when you can't move, So much for the great Kakashi. I'll finish you off later. But first your little friends will have to be eliminated' he made another hand sign, 'Water clone jutsu'

'_Damn, not this again' _you thought to yourself.

'You think wearing a headband makes you a ninja huh? When you've wavered between life & death so many times it doesn't faze you anymore then you may be called a ninja, when you have killed so many that you become numb to it then you may be called a ninja, If a profile is in my bingo book then that person may be able to be called a ninja, but you? You pathetic little brats? To call useless little upstarts, like you, ninja is a joke!' and with that he disappeared in the mist.

Your vision switched and you saw him heading for Naruto, you jumped into his pathway and took his attack. His kick sent you flying, you landed painfully on your back.

'Fuck' you grunted through gritted teeth, you pushed yourself back up into standing position. You had knocked Naruto aside so he didn't get hit but in doing so his headband had come off and as Zabuzza approached he stepped on it, you saw Naruto clench his teeth in anger

'Grrr, I'll make you pay for that little girl' Zabuzza said, glaring at you, you stared back defiantly, trying to mask your fear.

'Kyouri! Naruto!' Sakura called out, sounding petrified, you turned to her and smiled reassuringly.

'Don't worry, I'm fine, my baby sister can kick harder than that!' you replied, turning back to Zabuzza with a mocking smirk, who snarled in annoyance.

'Kyouri!' Kakashi's voice called out from inside the water prison 'Don't test him. Just get the bridge builder and run! You can't win this fight! He's using all his power to keep me in this prison so he can only fight you with his water clone! But the clone can't go far from his real body, so if you get far enough away he won't be able to follow'

'We've got to get Kakashi out of there!' Sasuke said suddenly and began to run towards him, throwing shuriken as he went, Zabuzza lifted his sword and swung it, knocking them aside. Sasuke jumped in the air, kunai in hand as he came back down again. Zabuzza's hand shot out and grabbed him by the neck, he threw him sideways, sending him crashing into a tree trunk.

'Sasuke! No!' Sakura shouted.

'H..he got Sasuke!' Naruto said shaking, Zabuzza was now right above him, Naruto made to move away but landed on his injured palm and suddenly stopped and stared down at it. He stood up and charged at Zabuzza.

'Naruto! That's not going to achieve anything!' You warned even though you knew he wouldn't listen.

'Yeh Naruto! What in the world are you doing?' Sakura added, clutching her head in fear.

'Fool' Zabuzza said kicking him backwards, Naruto came rolling back towards you, when he stopped he lay sprawled on the floor.

'Naruto! He's a Jounin! We're only Genin! How did you expect to beat him! Even Sasuke couldn't touch him!' Sakura shouted, trying to sound annoyed but she sounded more worried. Naruto was gradually getting to his feet, headband clutched in his hand.

'He did all that for his headband?' you asked, 'I may be the only one, but does risking your life for a headband sound kinda ridiculous to anyone else?' no-one answered, they were too busy staring at Naruto.

'Hey you!' Naruto said, still slightly bent over and looking at the ground 'The freak with the over sized sword! Put this in your bingo book, the ninja who's going to be the future hokage for the village hidden in the leaves never backs down and he never runs away! His Name is Uzumaki Naruto!' he said, straightening up and putting his headband back on 'Alright Sasuke, Listen up, Can you hear me?' he continued, the stupid grin back on his face.

'Yeh, I hear you.'

'And Sakura & Kyouri?'

'Yeh'

'Yeh whatever' you replied,

'I've got a plan'

'So you're finally thinking about teamwork huh?' Sasuke asked

'That's rich coming from you Sasuke' you pointed out , Sasuke rolled his eyes.

'Alright guys, let's do this! We can bring this guy down no sweat.' Naruto continued, ignoring both of you.

'Ha, Big words for such a little brat' Zabuzza countered, 'Think this plan of yours is going to save you? Or do you just like pain?'

'What do you guys think you're doing? I told you to run! This mission is not to prove how brave you are, it's to protect the bridge builder so stay on mission!' Kakashi shouted urgently from his prison, Naruto turned to look at Tazuna

'Erh, Mr. Bridge builder?'

'Well, I did get you all into this mess because of my desire to live, but I won't let that stand in your way of saving your sensei! Go, Forget about me!'

'Well, that's settled then, We'll save our sensei and then complete the mission' you stated

'You don't understand! They won't survive if they stay! , Tell them to go.' Kakashi shouted in response to this, you grinned at him

'So little faith in our abilities sensei' you started 'Shall we prove him wrong guys?' you asked, turning to the others, Sakura looked worried but the other two grinned back,

'Yeh! Believe it! You ready guys?' Naruto asked, everyone nodded. Zabuzza laughed,

'You really haven't learned anything, Still playing around, pretending to be ninja. When I was your age, This hand had already crushed hundreds of opponents'

'Zabuzza, the demon of the hidden mist' Kakashi commented

'Oh? So I was in your book too huh?'

'Long ago in the village hidden in the mist, also known as blood mist village before a student could become a ninja they had to face one final exam.'

'So? We did too' Sakura pointed out

'Not like this one' Zabuzza said laughing

'Yeh? In what way?' Naruto challenged

'Hn, Did you have to kill the other students to pass?'

Your eyes widened in shock then narrowed as you imagined it.

'Imagine, young ninja like you, eating together, training together, and then comes the final exam where they tell you that to pass all you have to do is survive and kill everyone else, and suddenly it doesn't matter whether your opponents a friend or foe, it's them or you.' as he talked it sounded as though he was remembering some happy memory of his past, your lip curled in disgust.

'Ten years ago' Kakashi continued 'The graduation exam changed, it had to. For the school had witnessed a dark evil that had filled it with terror. One child, a small boy, not even part of the school, without pause or hesitation approached the class and took down over a hundred other students.'

'It, It, felt so...' Zabuzza began 'Good!"

You glared at him as anger rose inside you, you struggled to keep it contained and in doing so lost control over your eyes, allowing your vision switch, just in time to see Zabuzza heading straight for Sasuke, you'd never reach him in time! You grabbed a handful of kunai and threw them at the floor in front of Zabuzza but he jumped over them and elbowed Sasuke in the gut. Sasuke went flying and Zabuzza took off after him, you threw yourself towards them, knocking Sasuke out of the way just before Zabuzza's fist was able to connect. Zabuzza growled and rounded on you, he punched you in the stomach and you doubled over in pain as you flew towards a tree, you crashed against it, the force from the impact whip-lashing your neck, you grunted in pain but before you'd had time to recover Zabuzza had you lifted in the air by your neck, back against the tree.

'Kyouri!' Kakashi called out in alarm.

'You're really starting to annoy me little girl' Zabuzza said, bringing his knee up into your gut, you coughed up blood and doubled over, numb to everything except the pain; the strong splitting pain up your back and into your neck, the sensation of your guts being crushed. His hand was tight around your neck, squeezing so hard you were struggling to breathe, you tried to pull his arm away from you, unclench his fingers, anything. But he was so much stronger than you and lack of oxygen was making you weak. Suddenly, amidst all the pain and panic, a faint memory came to you, It was of your sister, after one of her self-defence classes, showing you all the various pressure points on the body by trying them out on you. You felt a grin returning to your face, and you squinted up through one eye at Zabuzza. So quickly that he didn't have time to react, your hand shot up and you jammed two of your fingers, hard, into one of the pressure points on the side of his neck. In his shock he dropped you and you wasted no time in scrambling away from him.

Immediately Sasuke & Naruto jumped into the space between you & Zabuzza, who had turned around to glare, past the two boys directly at you with a deep bloodlust in his eyes. You tried to hold his gaze but turned to the floor as you pulled in breath after breath down your throat, each breath hurt, burning your lungs and scratching your throat, sore from coughing up blood.

'Kyouri! Are you ok?' Sakura's worried voice asked from above you.

'Does it look like I'm ok?' you snapped then relaxed, she was only trying to help, 'No, I'm sorry. I'm alright, at least, I've been worse' You lied, smiling. You started to get shakily to your feet, Sakura grabbed your arm to help you, you smiled at her and wiped the blood from your face, wincing at the metallic tinge in your mouth. When you turned round Naruto had made various shadow clones and surrounded Zabuzza.

'Wow, How many of them are there?' Sakura asked surprised, the clones jumped up into the air, each holding a kunai knife. They descended on Zabuzza, covering him. But within seconds Zabuzza had thrown them off, and as they skidded along the floor they poofed from existence. One of the Naruto's reached into his bag and brought out a wind shuriken, throwing it to Sasuke, who caught it and swirled round. Well, at least that was what it looked like, but from your angle you could see Naruto transforming into the shuriken and then as Sasuke swirled round you also saw him bring out a second shuriken, what were those two planning?

Sasuke held the shuriken and opened it, 'Demon wind Shuriken! Windmill of Shadows!' he said jumping into the air

'Ha! A Shuriken? You'll never touch me with that!' Zabuzza mocked, Sasuke ignored him and threw it, it zoomed past the Zabuzza clone and headed straight for the real Zabuzza.

'So, You aimed for the real me? Clever, but not nearly clever enough,' Zabuzza said catching the Shuriken in his free hand, but he gasped as he realised the second Shuriken coming straight towards him, this one of course was actually Naruto. You wondered what would happen if Zabuzza just stood there and Naruto crashed into him, then the illusion would break and Naruto would be in serious trouble, you tensed, ready to help him out if things turned bad. At the last second Zabuzza jumped, tucking his legs underneath him and allowing him to clearly avoid the Naruto Shuriken.

'I told you a Shuriken can't touch me!' Zabuzza boasted, Sakura gasped but you, Sasuke & the Naruto clone smirked as the Shuriken transformed into Naruto, armed with a kunai! Naruto threw the kunai at Zabuzza's head, which meant that Zabuzza had no choice but to pull his arm out of the water prison to stop himself from getting hurt, but in doing so released Kakashi, who quickly vanished. Zabuzza snarled, spinning the Shuriken he was holding and rounding on Naruto, you moved quicker than you ever had before, diving into the water and pulling Naruto by the feet down and across to the bank. By the time you'd climbed out Kakashi had blocked Zabuzza's attack. They stood there in a deadlock. As you hurriedly pulled Naruto out of the water Zabuzza closed the shuriken, putting even more force on Kakashi's hand, Kakashi grunted but managed to throw him off, sending the Shuriken flying off into the distance. You had seen the look in Kakashi's eyes when they'd been in the deadlock, he seriously looked as though he wanted to kill Zabuzza, and would enjoy doing it. Admittedly it kinda scared you that the carefree Kakashi you knew, who got fooled by Naruto's stupid pranks & was always late, could turn into such a deadly & dangerous killing machine in a matter of seconds. The look didn't go unnoticed by Zabuzza either, who's eyes widened in what might have been fear.

'Naruto, That was an excellent plan, you've really grown haven't you?'

Naruto laughed, carefree again, 'I knew I couldn't beat him with my shadow clones, that was just a distraction while I transformed into a Shuriken and had one of my clones put me into its bag. Then, when he threw me to Sasuke it looked like I was a Shuriken. Of course Sasuke realised this as soon as he touched the Shuriken which was me, so he swung round so no-one else could see, pulling out another shuriken at the same time. There were now two shuriken, one was real, the other was me! I hid in the shadow of the real Shuriken and my target was the real Zabuzza, of course I knew I wouldn't be able to fight him on my own, that was never part of the plan, we were just trying to free you'

'Don't boast, you just lucked out' Sasuke said, though you could tell he was secretly impressed.

'It was just a fluke!' Tazuna yelled, for once Sakura didn't say anything but she was looking at Naruto in a new kind of awed way..

'Hn, I got distracted and lost my grip on the water prison' Zabuzza said, trying to brush it off.

'Don't flatter yourself, you were forced to let go.' Kakashi retorted, Zabuzza's lip curled in annoyance 'Your technique worked on me once, but it won't work again' Kakashi continued, 'And now you're going to pay for hurting my team!'

Sasuke looked at you & Naruto and then at Sakura, you nodded and Naruto stood up. You stood around the bridge builder again, Mongi style.

Both Kakashi & Zabuzza jumped apart, high up into the air. When they landed Zabuzza started making hand signs, but Kakashi was copying them, in an instant! The water in-between them started to splash & swirl turbulently.

'Tori!' they both exclaimed at once, the water rose into two identical water dragons.

'Water style! Water dragon jutsu!' they said, the dragons swirled around each other, eventually colliding head-on. They created a huge wave, you looked at Naruto,

'Good thing I dragged you out of there.' you said, Naruto took one look at the water and nodded just as the wave crashed to the ground and soaked you all. The dragons were still fighting, crashing into each other then reviving out of the water again. In the middle of all of this Kakashi & Zabuzza stood, struggling against each other, Zabuzza with his huge sword and Kakashi with a small Shuriken.

'Wow, How is he holding off Zabuzza's sword with just a Shuriken? And Zabuzza must be stronger than him anyway!.' Naruto asked out loud, no-one answered.

Both Zabuzza & Kakashi broke contact and jumped back again, circling each other, suddenly they stopped and both raised their hands, two fingers from each hand sticking up, one hand in front of their face, the other in the air.

'He's not just following' Tazuna commented, he was now on the floor with Sakura watching over him, you were standing up with Naruto & Sasuke in front of them, 'He moves the same way at the same time.'

'Yeh, but how? Isn't the sharingan only meant to be able to copy, not predict?' you asked, Sasuke looked down at the floor.

'Yeh it's only meant to be able to copy, but maybe...' he trailed off, looking annoyed at something.

Zabuzza & Kakashi stood there, staring at each other.

'Going to do next?' Kakashi said apparently randomly, Zabuzza opened his eyes in alarm and you narrowed yours. Was Kakashi reading his thoughts? They started to make more hand signs, both simultaneously, 'It makes you furious doesn't it?' Kakashi stated

'Wh...what's going on?' Sakura asked, 'Can Kakashi read minds?'

'No. The sharingan can't do that! I'm sure of it' Sasuke said suddenly, a thought occurred to you,

'Wait, aren't there different types of ninja techniques?'

'Yeh, so what?' Sasuke said, looking at you

'Well, isn't one of them some sort of illusion type thing?'

'Yeh Genjutsu, that could be it, but I've never seen anything like this before!' Sasuke answered, still uncertain.

'All you're doing is copying me! You can't beat me with cheap tricks!' Zabuzza said suddenly, drawing all of your attentions back to the fight, 'I'll crush you!' he finished, but Kakashi spoke the words as well, at precisely the same time. Zabuzza's eyes opened in shock, you could tell he was losing it. 'By the time I'm finished with you you'll never open that monkey mouth again!' Zabuzza said, his eyes going bloodshot. A dark shape started to manifest behind Kakashi, you stared at it, wondering the same thing as everyone else, What the hell was it? It gradually gained in colour to form an image of Zabuzza.

Kakashi just stood there, never taking his eyes off of Zabuzza, who in turn seemed mesmerised, unable to look away. Kakashi's hands started moving, forming hand signs.

'Water style, Giant Water Vortex Jutsu!', A jet of water shot up from the river/lake/sea and started to swirl around him, growing in size until it turned into a ball which headed straight for Zabuzza.

'THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" Zabuzza managed to shout before he was engulfed in the vortex, soon the whole forest was covered in water, you sighed as you looked down at yourself, your clothes heavy from absorbing so much of the lake and your hair plastered to your head. Zabuzza's body collided with a tree, he straightened up but four kunais shot into him, he groaned in pain, sitting on a branch in the tree above Zabuzza's head was Kakashi.

'Now you're finished' he said simply. You, Naruto, Sakura & Sasuke had all come over by now and were standing in the small clearing as the water began to reside and run back into the lake/river/sea.

'How? Can you read minds? See into the future?' Zabuzza asked, his voice wheezing slightly.

'Yes, this will be your last battle, ever' Kakashi responded smoothly. Suddenly two senbon came and hit Zabuzza in the neck, his body instantly became limp and slumped to the floor. You stared in shock, trying to find the person who had thrown them. There! In the tree!

'You were right, It was his last battle.' It was a young person, you couldn't tell whether it was a girl or a boy, their voice sounded female but their chest was flat like a boy's. They wore a white mask with red swirls painted on it, there were small angular slits for eye holes & it had the mist village insignia engraved onto the forehead of the mask.

Kakashi jumped down and felt for a pulse at Zabuzza's neck,

'No vital signs' he concluded, he turned towards the person with the mist village mask.

'Thank you. I have been tracking this man for a very long time. Waiting for this chance to finally take him down.' the person said.

'From your mask I see that you're a tracker ninja from the village hidden in the mist' Kakashi commented.

'Impressive, you are well informed'

'Argh! A tracker!' Naruto jumped in front of you, Sasuke, Sakura & Tazuna.

'Naruto, you don't even know what that is!' Sakura pointed out 'You missed the lesson on it as usual, try coming to school sometime!. When a rouge ninja brakes away from his village his body will contain the secrets of that village, medicines, jutsus whatever. It is the job of the tracker ninja to hunt these rouge ninja down do the secrets of their village stay secrets' Sakura explained

'That's correct' the person in the mask commented, 'Zabuzza's body holds many secrets, if they got into the wrong hands it could become a problem for my village.

Naruto ran in front of everyone again, looking from the kid to Zabuzza and back again 'What is this! Who do you think you are?' he shouted at the kid, 'Did you hear me?'

'Calm down Naruto, he's not the enemy' Kakashi said, standing up,

'Well that answers my question about the gender' you thought to yourself

'That's not the point! Did you see what he did?' Naruto persisted 'Zabuzza was huge! and powerful like some kind of monster! And this kid, who's no bigger or older than us took him out with one move! I mean, what does that make us? We're just fooling around! We don't know anything! How am I supposed to accept that?'

'Well, whether you chose to accept it or not Naruto, it did happen' Kakashi pointed out, going over to him, he put his hand on Naruto's head 'In this world you'll find kids that are younger than you & yet stronger than me'

The guy with the mask held out a hand and a gust of wind took up and he vanished, only to reappear again next to the body of Zabuzza

'Once again Thank you, But I must dispose of the remains now. Your job is done' he said as he picked up the body and disappeared.

'He disappeared!' Naruto said alarmed and ran up to the tree

'Let it go Naruto, he's gone' Kakashi said sighing and pulling his headband back down over his eye. Naruto ignored him and sank to his knees, punching the floor, eventually Kakashi went up to him and caught one of his arms, mid-punch

'As ninja the things we encounter will never be easy, save your anger, for the next enemy' he let go of Naruto's arm and turned to face the rest of you, 'We haven't completed our mission yet, we still need to get the bridge builder to his bridge.' the rest of you nodded and he turned round to walk away, he hadn't gone more than a few steps before he collapsed,

'Kakashi sensei!' Naruto called out, you stood there shocked, now what?


	12. Safe at last

You were heading back towards Tazuna's house, he was carrying Kakashi as he was the only big enough, you were still travelling at a normal human pace, and on the floor. Naruto was running ahead amongst the tree tops to make sure there were no more oncoming dangers.

As the forest was thinning, and more light was allowed through the branches Sasuke turned to look at the bridge builder & Kakashi, but saw something else.

'Kyouri?' he asked, you turned to look at him

'What?'

'When did you get that cut on your neck? It's bleeding'

'Damn it!' you thought to yourself, hand instantly moving to cover it up, 'Urh, I dunno, must have got it during the fight, it's nothing to worry about.' you said finally, Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

'But you didn't get cut during the fight' he pointed out, you struggled for a cover story, in the end you settled for one not unlike the truth.

'It must have been a cut from a few days ago, and the scab just got knocked off during the fight, probably when Zabuzza was holding me by the neck.' which was true; it probably did get knocked off during the fight, you lowered your hand, hoping it would make him forget about it, instead it just provoked more questions seeing as you had removed most of the blood.

'It's a very strangely shaped cut, It looks almost like a cloud' he noted, now able to see the outline.

'Erh yeh, I fell on a biscuit cutter' you lied lamely, well, you might as well stick with the same cover story, he gave a disbelieving 'Hn' and dropped the subject, you continued the rest of the journey in silence, save the occasional direction from Tazuna or Naruto checking you were still following.

Once you reached the house you were immediately greeted by a worried looking woman with long black hair,

'Oh my god! What happened?' she asked as she saw the unconscious figure of Kakashi.

'We ran into one of Gato's jounin men' Tazuna explained

She gasped, 'Did they hurt him?' she asked, indicating Kakashi

'Ha! Hardly, more like the other way round, I don't know how this guy did it but he beat the shit out of that Zabuzza guy'

'Then why is he unconscious?'

'He just over exerted himself that's all'

'Well get him inside quickly' with that she helped Tazuna bring Kakashi inside the house, you followed behind them as they walked into a room, there was a bed on the floor which they then started to lay Kakashi down on. As the woman stood up she looked at you.

'Hello, I take it from your headbands that you are also ninja?'

'Yes, that is correct' Sasuke answered

'Well, if you have helped save my father's life we are eternally grateful and you of course are all welcome to stay here.'

'Thank you. That is much appreciated' Sasuke replied, you smiled at her, trying to hide the fact that her thoughts were leaking out, you could sense the doubt behind her words, she doubted you'd be able to stop Gato, but more painful for you was the slight motherly worry she felt towards you, Sasuke, Sakura & Naruto, which was perfectly understandable seeing as you were all only 13; still pretty young to be putting your lives on the line & trying to save an entire land from one of the world's richest men. Unfortunately for you, who hadn't had a mother for so long, the sudden return of that motherly protectiveness was almost overwhelming, but you stayed there, keeping your face polite but impassive, this wasn't the first time you'd cursed your "gift" and, you guessed, it wouldn't be your last.

'_Oh well, you know what they say'_ you thought to yourself, '_With great power comes great problems_'

She showed you to your rooms, you & Sakura were in one room & Naruto & Sasuke in the other, after she'd gone back downstairs to see to Kakashi Sasuke sighed.

'Argh, sleeping in the same room as _him_ is going to be a nightmare' he complained, turning to Naruto when he continued, 'You better not snore!'

'Me snore? More like you Sasuke!' Naruto retorted

'Shut up Naruto! Sasuke would never do anything like that!' Sakura said hitting Naruto then proceeding to stare dreamily at Sasuke, 'Then again, we could switch if you want?' she suggested hopefully, Sasuke looked worried

'No-way am I sharing with Naruto! Or Sasuke for that matter.' you announced, Sakura turned to glare at you.


	13. Or not

You all walked back downstairs again and no sooner had your foot left the last step than you heard Tazuna calling,

'Hey kids! Your sensei's awake!'

They all rushed into the room, you walked casually behind them, Sakura went to kneel next to him.

'Listen sensei, your sharingan is amazing and everything but if it puts that much strain on you maybe you shouldn't use it?'

'You're right, but I had no choice'

'Well, you did take down one of the most powerful ninja assassins so we should be safe for awhile' Tazuna put in

'Right.. But what about that boy with the mask?' she asked uncertainly

'He's part of the anbu black ops, He's not our enemy.'

'Erh,?' you began, they all turned to you, 'What is an anbu black ops?'

'Oh, of course you don't know.' Kakashi said, Tazuna looked at him questioningly so Kakashi explained, 'Kyouri here only became a ninja a few days ago.'

'You mean, She only graduated or...?" he trailed off, staring at you,

'I mean, she only just started training at all a few days ago.' Tazuna's eyes widened in shock at Kakashi's words,

'_Why is he so shocked_?' you thought to yourself, then dismissed the thought with the obvious answer '_He's probably just wondering why he's putting his life in the hands of a kid who'd only just started learning to fight_.'

'Anyway, Anbu black ops are elite tracking ninja. Their job is to find any rouge ninja from their village and destroy them; their bodies hold many of the secrets from their village, which, if they got into the wrong hands, could prove hazardous. They hunt down a rouge ninja & once they find them will dispose of the body immediately.'

'Urh..?' you started again, wondering why they were all being so stupid

'What?' Kakashi asked

'Well, Maybe it's just something I'm not getting but, If they have to destroy the body immediately, why didn't that guy?'

'Exactly what I'm worried about' Kakashi sighed.

'What are you lot going on about? You thrashed that guy!' Tazuna said, dismissing your concerns

'Yeh, Kakashi-sensei, I don't get it either, we clearly saw that guy die' Sakura added

'No, what we saw was only and imitation of death, not the actual thing. Did any of you notice what the boy used as his weapon?'

'Senbon!' Sasuke exclaimed, obviously realising something you didn't.

'Precisely, which are rarely used to kill, only if they hit a vital organ, none of which are in the neck.'

'So that means the boy was in league with Zabuzza?'

'Yes, and therefore Zabuzza is probably still alive'

You gasped, along with everyone else in the room, 'What? But what are we going to do now?'

'We're going to fit in as much training as possible before our next fight with him, which will surely come.

'How can you train us when your injured?' Sakura pointed out

'Don't worry about me, I've had worse than this' he replied standing up, Tazuna's daughter shook her head but handed him a pair of crutches, 'Thank you' he said turning to her then back to you & the other 3 genin. 'Now, follow me outside'

So you did, even though "outside" didn't mean in the back garden like you had expected, it meant a half-hour long walk until Kakashi decided you were in a suitable enough training ground.

'Okay, now, All you have to do is climb a tree, but with one slight rule; no hands.'

You groaned and the others let out shouts of disbelief

'What!'

'That's impossible!'

Kakashi sighed and proceeded to place one crutch on the tree, then one foot and soon he was walking up it, his body perpendicular to the tree, his feet firmly planted on the bark,

'Okay, Your turn. Firstly concentrate on your chakra-' he was cut off by Naruto

'What? How is climbing a tree going to help us fight Zabuzza?'

'It's the only way to fight Zabuzza, to climb a tree like this you need extreme control of your chakra & the hardest place to concentrate it in is your feet, if you can do this, in theory, you can master any jutsu.'

'But we're already using chakra in our jutsus!' Naruto complained, Sasuke nodded his head.

'He's got a point, we are'

'No you're not, there are many different types of chakra, and you need delicate balances of each one, before now you've just been guessing at the proportions, so even if you use a huge amount of chakra a technique can still fail, or it will just be pathetic. Right, everyone ready? Now first, concentrate the chakra in your feet, once you have done this, run to the tree to get your momentum up and see how far you can run up before you have to jump off, when this happens mark your spot with a kunai knife and try to get past it next time, and the next. Ready? Go!'

Everyone stood very straight, heads bowed, eyes closed. Fingers held together in the chakra concentrating sign that most ninja found useful to use. Your vision switched behind your closed eyes and you felt the chakra pulsing through your body. You directed a small amount at your feet, making sure it continuously pulsed round them so you wouldn't lose your supply. Once you felt confident you could contain the levels in your feet, you opened your eyes and ran for the tree. You winced as your feet left the ground but found yourself running up the tree. You smiled, but it quickly turned to an expression of horror as you realised you were slowing down. Stupidly, instead of increasing your leg speed, you increased the chakra in your feet. There was a loud crack and the tree trunk began to topple towards you.

'Oh fuck' you stated as you looked up and realised, you jumped off the tree, landing on the floor and jumping a few more spaces back so as not to get squished by it.

'Slightly too much chakra there Kyouri' Kakashi commented, you rolled your eyes and refocused your chakra.

Kakashi P.O.V~

You stared in shock as you realised she'd managed to snap the tree trunk in half as if it was a tooth pick. You'd heard about her chakra levels but had never imagined anything like this. You quickly covered your shock in time so that no-one noticed, or so you hoped, and said

'Slightly too much chakra there Kyouri' She rolled her eyes and started again. Remarkable, you'd assume a feet like that -breaking a solid tree in half as if it was nothing, with just her chakra, not even used in a jutsu- would have used up all her chakra, but she looked perfectly fine.

You looked at the others to find Naruto rubbing his head & sitting on the floor, Sasuke glaring at the tree as if he wanted to kill it for not letting him get to the top and Sakura,... was sitting at the top of a tree grinning down at everyone, obviously trying to annoy Kyouri, who wasn't even looking. Oh well, you decided to help Sakura for once.

'Well, it seems like Sakura is the best ninja here. She knows both the theory of chakra & how to apply it.' Sakura beamed, and looked down at Sasuke who turned away with a disgruntled 'Whatever' you saw her face fall, but she stared in wonder as Naruto & Kyouri congratulated her.

'Yeh! I knew you could do it Sakura!'

'Wow! Sakura, you did that so easily! You're so good at this!' Kyouri said smiling up at her, Sakura stared at her astonished, but Kyouri's smile suddenly changed into a smirk and she ran at the tree Sakura was sitting on with such amazing speed that she was sitting next to Sakura in seconds.

'Thought I'd come and join you.' She said to the now glaring Sakura, Who was obviously annoyed at having her great achievement overshadowed by Kyouri's quick learning & ridiculously fast speed -even though you could tell the speed was the only way she'd been able to get up, the chakra in her feet didn't stay at constant levels for very long so if she didn't get up quickly she'd end up snapping the tree again.- Kyouri knew this of course and only drove to wind her up more.

'Well, it must be something to do with girls being better than boys, seeing as I only started the other day, so it can't be hard training, we must just be naturals.' She continued, slyly dropping in the "I only started the other day" Knowing it would infuriate Sakura ever the more for Sakura had spent many nights pouring over books & learning about control of chakra.

You watched all this with amusement, looking at the boys now to see their rivalry also showing, you sighed, why did you always get the difficult ones?

Normal P.O.V~

After you'd suitably annoyed Sakura you jumped down and tried to get up without strengthening your legs with chakra; though it was a very useful skill, it used up a fair amount of chakra. You kept going, ignoring everything else, your annoyance at your continued failings kept you motivated, unlike Naruto & Sasuke who were obviously competing against each other. You trained with the boys well into the night, long after Sakura had given up from lack of chakra. You could tell her chakra had run out as her body no longer held the colour of spiritual chakra and the physical chakra colour was very light. You'd categorised your chakra into two main categories; Spiritual chakra was denser but seemed to be the most important in forming jutsus. Physical chakra replenished faster, but also seemed to be used up in Taijutsu and was better to use when re-enforcing your legs.  
>You were determined to keep going until you could reach the whole way to the top without running. Even after your body had decided it was completely spent you kept going as you could see the chakra still running through your veins, you weren't going back until your chakra ran fainter than Sakura's had, which at this rate, would be a very long time.<p>

You'd found it was easier to close your eyes & see through your vision while you were climbing the tree; you could see the chakra supply in your body and so keeping it constant was easier. It was at one of these times that you felt your chakra connect with the chakra of a tree, it had only physical chakra but it was so big & it had an immense source of chakra for an organism which hardly moved. It seemed so weird, but at one point you felt a definite connection and some of your spiritual chakra flowed into the tree & some of its physical energy flowed into you. As soon as you stepped off the patch a small branch began to sprout. You stared at it in wonder, still walking up the tree. Upon turning round you realised you'd reached the top! You smiled, satisfaction coursing through your body. You walked back down again, ignoring the boys, and realised you still had some chakra left. You looked up at the small branch that had grown from the tree, an idea forming in your mind. You walked over to the broken tree trunk from earlier and placed your hand on the stump that was still left in the ground. You searched for the connection, it was more difficult this time as the tree was starting to die and you had to delve quite deep to find living wood, but when you did you immersed yourself into it, releasing your spiritual chakra but trying to keep as much of the tree's physical chakra inside it. Your eyes were closed so the first thing that told you the effects of your efforts was the raising & rounding of the tree stump where your hands lay. You felt it raise to about the tip of your chin, your elbows out at a parallel to your shoulders, when your chakra supply stopped. Your connection closed and as you opened your eyes and lifted your hands you felt your legs sway and flashes of colour burst in front of your eyes. Before you passed out you saw the tree stump, now growing into a short but fat sapling. You smiled, happy that you'd saved the tree. The last thing you saw as your eyes blacked out & your vision took over for a split second was your body, practically devoid of chakra & another two dull blobs of chakra, which must have been Naruto & Sasuke, come running towards you.


	14. The Price

You woke up, opening your eyes & wincing when the bright light dazzled you, You sat up & your head pounded.

'Urgh' you moaned, holding your head,

'Yes. You completely exhausted your chakra supply.' you heard Kakashi's voice and looked up, to see not only him, but everyone else as well.

'Yeh, I'd figured' you retorted sourly; your head _really _hurt. Like a splitting pain in your brain. It was making it hard to concentrate, and definitely left you in no mood to be polite.

'Well, at least you know your limits now.' he replied to this sighing.

'Is she going to be ok?' Sakura asked

'Yes, she'll be fine. She just needs rest that's all' she nodded and Kakashi continued 'Well, I'm going to check on everyone else.' he said, walking out of the room.

You sighed, desperately trying not to visibly clench your teeth, you probably didn't do a very good job 'Well, I guess I'm going to be stuck in here for the rest of the day. What about you guys?'

'I'm going off to protect the bridge builder while he's building the bridge' Sakura announced, clearly proud. You looked at the others questioningly

'We're staying here until we can climb the tree' Sasuke answered. You nodded, hoping that by not answering, you would end the conversation and they'd leave, their voices were like knives in your head.

'Well, see you guys later.' you said through the silence, they nodded and walked out of the room. Finally!

Your shoulders slumped as soon as the door was closed and you gripped your head tightly, collapsing on the bed. You ground your teeth against the pain, trying not to call out. Your head felt like there was a white hot dagger repeatedly stabbing through your brain. Somehow you knew what it was; a huge part of your chakra had seemed untouchable yesterday, as if your body wouldn't let you use it. But now you understood why, this pain, it was coming from inside you! That chakra was there to hold it off. Only when the tree actually took it from you could you use it, but in doing so you released this pain upon yourself. It hurt so much, you just wanted it to stop, to go away. A hopelessness descended upon you and you felt tears well up in your eyes, you choked down a sob and took a deep breath

'Shit' you muttered as a new wave of pain hit, this time accompanied by a slight nausea.

Sasuke's P.O.V~

You listened to her trying to brush it off as if it was nothing, but you could see her clenched teeth; obviously something was wrong.

'Well, See you guys later' she said and you nodded & started to walk out of the room, the others followed you. Once everyone was outside you shut the door and motioned for them to be silent.

'Right' you whispered so Kyouri couldn't hear you 'There is obviously something wrong with Kyouri'

'Huh? But she looked perfectly fine.' Naruto protested

'No she didn't. She was too pale & her teeth were clenched the entire time. She's quite clearly in pain. She just doesn't want us to know it.' They were looking at you unconfidently so you continued 'Look. Just wait here for a few minutes. I guarantee you she will break down as soon as she thinks we're gone'

They nodded their heads and you all stood outside the door, listening for any sound coming from within. And then, just as you thought you might have imagined it

'Shit' it was quiet, but it was definitely there. Sakura & Naruto looked at you and you nodded. They stepped back and you pushed open the door. Everyone stepped inside.

Once inside you saw Kyouri doubled over & clutching her head so tightly blood had started to run down her face where her nails penetrated her skin.

'K..kyouri..' you trailed off, staring at this crippled form of the girl you knew, even Naruto was silent for once, she'd always seemed so invincible, whenever something should have hurt she always just grinned & pretended she couldn't feel it, even during her fight with Zabuzza she never broke down to the pain. So for her to be reduced to this meant whatever was happening was bad. It was unnerving to realise she _was _a regular human being, she was a real person. Looking closely, you noticed tears in her eyes. Something softened inside you then, even as you stood there shocked, you cared that she was hurt. She must be so scared, feel so alone, you knew those feelings all too well. A wave of memories hit you, threatening to sweep you off your feet; eyes as red as the blood that splattered the walls, that pooled from your parents' necks...

Sakura had already rushed towards her, trying to prize her hands away from her head,

'Go away' Kyouri muttered, 'I'll be fine in a minute, honestly. It doesn't hurt that much, just a bit of a headache.'

'Yeah right' Naruto stated simply, also going over to help, 'What's wrong? What's happening?'

'Nothing' she persisted. A deep shudder ran through her frame and she released her hands and looked up, even attempting at a smile, 'Seriously guys I'm fine. See' but her smile was forced & fake

'Kyouri, it's obvious you're in great amounts of pain, but we can't help unless you tell us what's wrong!' Sakura said, sounding desperate

You still just stood there, staring at her pale face & trembling body, Sakura turned to you in desperation.

'Sasuke! What are we going to do?'

'We should get Kakashi' Naruto said, being sensible for once

'No, I'm fine. And anyway, Kakashi's no medical nin, even if I was in pain, which I'm not, he wouldn't be able to help much.' Kyouri protested, everyone ignored her feeble lie. She angrily dashed the tears from her eyes, obviously trying to keep the pain from her face. You went to stand next to Sakura, and crouched down,

'Do you know any medical techniques?' you asked

'I know the theory, but I've never tried any'

'Do you think you can help her?'

'If I knew what was wrong then maybe'

'Kyouri, what's wrong? If you tell us we might be able to help you.'

'Nothing! Or at least, nothing curable. Just leave me, I'll be fine later.'

'We're on a team. That means we look out for our team mates, which means when one member is in extreme amounts of pain we don't just leave them. Stop being so childish.'

She sighed, 'Well fine. But I'm not in any pain' she retorted determinedly & almost angrily, despite her voice, which was weak and wobbling. Something inside you snapped, why was she refusing to be helped? Why was she choosing to suffer so much on her own? You hands reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her, it wasn't a conscious thought, it just happened. You watched her body rock back & forth, too weak to try hold herself upright. You let go as soon as you realised what you were doing, eyes wide in horror.

'Sasuke! What the hell was that?' Naruto exclaimed, getting in front of Kyouri as if to protect her from any future attacks from you, even Sakura was looking at you shocked

'I..I, don't know. I'm so sorry' you mumbled, trying to form words from your suddenly frozen mouth, but Kyouri just sighed.

'No, It's ok. I needed that' she admitted, sitting up straight running a hand through her hair & pushing her fringe off her face momentarily. You got a glimpse of the other half of her face and saw that it had a deep long scar running down it. Strange. 'But it's honestly nothing. This happens whenever I use up too much chakra.'

'Huh? But I used up almost all of my chakra yesterday as well and that didn't happen to me' Sakura pointed out

'Yeah, that's 'cos it only happens to me'

'Then why did you use up all your chakra if you knew that would happen?'

'I didn't. I've only just figured it out now.' She winced, raising a hand to her head and closing her eyes.

'Oh, So you're alright then?'

'Yeah, As in, I will be. But right now my head still hurts like hell.' Her tone of voice made it clear she wanted you all to go away, but you were sure there was something she wasn't telling you.

'How come?' You asked suddenly, she sighed

'I don't know exactly, Only that a lump of my chakra is used to keep this pain at bay normally, & I shouldn't have been able to use it but...' she trailed off, obviously not wanting to tell you all the reason.

'But?' Sakura prompted

'But I did' Kyouri finished simply

'Will you be ok now?' Sakura persisted

'Yeah' she replied. It was pretty clear she was still in great pain but also that she wanted to be alone, however, the scar on her face was still bothering you,

'Just now, On your chee-' you started but her eyes darted to you, flashing a furious warning, you stopped mid-sentence & Stood up, 'Come on guys. We should leave her to recover in peace' The others nodded, stood up & followed you out of the room.

Normal P.O.V~

Once they had left for the second time you sank back down into the bed, subconsciously raising a hand to touch the scar on your face; you tried to remember where you'd got it. You knew it had been painful, extremely painful, and scary, it had been dark and you were at home. You were still very young, but something had happened, some horrible act of betrayal,...your head throbbed suddenly, violently. You gasped and clutched at it, hunching over into a ball once more. Silent sobs racked your body, why was this happening? Why you? The pain was so acute, so sharp and undeniable. You took a deep breath and stilled your crying, trying to slow down your breathing. Once you'd relaxed, you concentrated on sending yourself to sleep to block out the pain. You shut your eyes and tried to feel the chakra in your brain. Luckily there wasn't much at the moment so you had quite a clear path through. Once there it got very confusing; it was like you were seeing double, except one was with normal vision & one was with your chakra vision. You blinked a couple of times in surprise before you got used to the strangeness of it. Unfortunately, it was only adding to your headache but for now you ignored it and focused on trying to shut down the conscious part of your brain, first though, you had to locate it. As you felt around your brain you were dimly aware of what all the different parts of your brain did, but as soon as you'd passed on the names & meanings were lost to you. It continued like this for a few minutes but eventually you found a word that stuck with you, "Consciousness" you broke into it, and as you did so felt a searing pain in your head, you winced but succeeded in breaking through. You imeditally removed the chakra from there, it was a weird chakra, not the normal greenish-blue of spiritual chakra but also not the peachy-orange of physical chakra, it was a deep purple colour. But you quickly forgot this as you were suddenly asleep.


	15. Building Bridges and Selfdoubts

You awoke to someone gently shaking your shoulder,

'Kyouri?' You opened your eyes to see Sasuke looking down at you, in one of his hands was what looked like some hot soup. 'She said to give you some soup, so you could regain your strength'

You guessed by "she" he meant Tazuna's daughter, 'Oh, Thanks' you smiled gratefully and sat up as he handed you the bowl. You picked up the spoon and drank a mouthful, it was tomato based with a mix of herbs added for flavour.

'Mmm, tell her it's delicious' you said after you'd swallowed, he nodded and stood up, he turned to leave but then suddenly twisted back to look at you again

'Urh, Kyouri?'

'Yeh?'

'Are you alright now? I mean seriously.'

You thought for awhile before answering, your headache had gone down a lot, it was now bearable but it still pulsed painfully occasionally, 'Yeh, I'm a lot better thanks' you replied eventually, smiling, he nodded his head and turned to leave again but a sudden thought occurred to you,

'Wait, what time is it?'

'Well everyone's having dinner at the moment'

Dinner! But, that meant you'd been asleep all day, it seemed that when you shut down your conscious you stayed asleep until someone woke you up. '_Hmm, I'll have to find a way around that'_ you thought to yourself. You stood up; a day in bed was long enough for anyone to recover,

'I'll come downstairs I think.'

'You sure?' Sasuke asked doubtfully

'Yes' he sighed and started to walk out of the room, you followed him. You walked into the main room and everyone stared at you, you ignored them and went to sit next to Sakura, she looked at you worriedly.

'Are you ok?' she asked,

'Yeah. One day is enough time to recover' you replied smiling, she looked even more worried now that you were smiling, you had forgotten that you'd spent most of your time winding her up. God, you were a bitch. You should probably try to be a bit nicer to her, and the others as well, now that you thought about.

'Well I'm glad that you're feeling better, here, have some of this' Tazuna's daughter said, spooning some fish & vegetables onto your plate.

'Thank you. And the soup was lovely' you replied, smiling again

'Wow Kyouri, You're being so nice to everyone' Naruto noted, being stupid as normal, you rolled your eyes.

'Wow Naruto, You're being such an idiot, Oh wait, I forgot, you're always an idiot' Well, old habits die hard.

'Ah! Why am I the only one she's being mean to? The world hates me.'

'Did you know Naruto, that girls of their age normally express their love by being mean' Kakashi added, Sakura gasped and you glared at him, he pretended not to notice.

'Did you know Naruto, that men of his age are normally lying, lazy old freaks with stupid hair.'

Kakashi laughed again along with Tazuna, his daughter smiled and said

'Well, that's pretty true' you grinned at her and she winked.

You started eating, it really was very nice, despite the obvious lack of ingredients that came with living in somewhere like the land of waves. There you went again; being a bitch. At least you had the tact not to say anything out loud this time; you weren't _that _stupid.

After you'd all eaten, Sasuke & Naruto went out again to train and you & Sakura went back upstairs to your room. You sighed and pulled a book out of your bag, leaning your back against a wall, you began to read.

'What are you reading?' Sakura asked after a few minutes, you pointed your finger to the spine of the book where the title was written in big red letters

'I'm assuming you can read' you said without lifting your head, 'Though that might be a bit too much to expect.'

'Urgh! Of course I can read! I'm the smartest in our class!'

'Not anymore'

'You think your smarter than me? Ha! As if!'

'Yes, I am.'

'What makes you think that?'

'I've spent 10 out of 13 years at a school, learning nothing but school work, You've spent 10, or less, out of 13 years at a ninja training academy, learning about how to be a ninja. Not how to do maths or science or geography or any of the other subjects that I've spent my life learning facts about. So yes, I do think I'm smarter than you, just the pure fact that you couldn't work that out for yourself proves my point.'

She sat there, staring at you, you sighed and went back to reading your book. You always got this way when you'd embarrassed yourself, a.k.a- by fainting. You had to big yourself up, make yourself feel better, and the only way you knew how to was to put other people down. You were aware of it, but you couldn't stop. With your old friends back in Konohagakure they just laughed at your sulkiness & mood swings but this was Sakura & you'd probably just really hurt her feelings. You sighed, damned conscience!

'Look Sakura, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, I'm just tired, that's all.' you said, looking up from your book and attempting a smile. She looked at you weirdly

Sakura's P.O.V~

'_What the hell!" _You thought to yourself, _'One second she's acting like my worst enemy & calling me stupid the next she's smiling and being really friendly. What is with her? It's like she wants to be mean, but just can't. Or maybe she wants to be nice, and can't.'_

'Urh, That's ok. I understand, I'm quite tired too. I don't get how the boys can keep going like that' you replied eventually, smiling, she smiled back,

'Yeah, I guess boys just get competitive.'

'Yeh, boys can be so immature like that.' That seemed to be an acceptable answer as she smiled and changed the subject.

'Well, I'm tired. I'm going to go to bed'

'Yeh same' you replied. The room was silent as you both got ready for bed. Well, that wasn't awkward at all...

Normal P.O.V~

You lay in bed awake that night. After passing out, the realisation had finally hit you; you were a ninja, you were out here, _right now_, risking your life. You could die at any second, you almost had. You'd never, ever, ever admit it to anyone, _ever_, but you were scared. You didn't want to go back out there. You just wanted to be back at home, lying in your own bed, safe, and knowing that the worst thing you might face the next morning was your angry history teacher, demanding an explanation as to why you hadn't finished your homework.  
>You didn't want to have to deal with the Akatsuki, you didn't want to have the lives of your family in your hands. You acted tough, acted like you knew what you were doing, but the truth was, you had absolutely no clue what to do, how to deal with this. You'd just mouthed off to Sakura about being smarter than her, but you didn't doubt that she would know what to do if she was in your position. Sasuke, Sakura, even Naruto, they seemed so...competent, so capable. Like they could deal with anything the world threw at them. Next to them, you felt like you were still a kid, some little girl that needed looking after. And the only way you knew how to deal with feeling inadequate was to act even more arrogant than usual. You hated being weak, or being seen to be weak, hated being useless and needy. You'd rather be a hated bitch than some weak girl who needed someone to protect them.<p>

You fought back the tears, furious at yourself for crying. Damn it all! Why was this so hard? Everyone else seemed to manage it! Why were you so scared? Maybe you weren't cut out to be a ninja at all. Even when you eventually fell asleep, it didn't bring any solace.

You walked down the dark street lit solely by the moon, casting eerie shadows on buildings. As you walked you kept your head up and your back straight, staring dead-ahead so as to avoid meeting the terrified faces of your villagers that only made you need to kill more. Though you'd never admit it, not to anyone or even yourself, you secretly hated their treatment of you, because it made you hate yourself; you wished you'd never been born. It was when you felt like this that the desire to kill rose up so strongly you couldn't resist, you needed to kill to prove you had a purpose in life, to prove there was some reason for your birth, to prove you weren't a waste of space & time. But for now you ignored these thoughts and kept walking, staring at the huge beautiful moon, which saw everything and nothing.


	16. To the Death

You awoke the next morning with an image of a boy in your head, silhouetted against the moon, a hint of red on his spiky hair. He was surrounded by nothing but nothing but sand for miles. This scene came accompanied with a deep feeling of loneliness, abandonment, betrayal & hatred. It was almost enough to bring tears to your eyes, whatever had happened in his life to cause such feelings must have been terrible; they were buried under layer & layer of the same emotions. He had obviously lived all his life in constant reminder of these feelings, you couldn't imagine what that was like, to have no-one to turn to at all, no-one to confide in, no-one who cared whether you survived the end of the day. That must be awful, to be so absolutely alone. That poor boy must feel completely worthless, like he had no reason at all for living, you didn't think anyone could deal with that without going insane. Shaking your head to clear the nightmare and reminding yourself it was just that; a nightmare. It wasn't real. Couldn't be real.

After you'd recovered you sat up & looked around to see Sakura still in bed. Well, you could wake her up nicely, or... An evil smile crept onto your face as you stood up & grabbed a pillow. You crept over to her and slammed the pillow down on her head, her eyes flung open in surprise

'AH! WHAT THE FU-' She caught herself as she saw it was you, 'Why you!' and with that she sat up and seized her own pillow, making to hit you on the head with it, you ducked but in doing so gave her time to stand up. Within seconds you were both ducking and hitting and laughing and shrieking.

The door opened and you both stopped mid-hit, you turned to face the door to see Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke & Tazuna all looking at you in an equal mix of confusion, despair and shock.

'Erh..? We thought you were killing each other up here' Kakashi said after a silence that seemed to last forever.

'Tempting' you replied, grinning at Sakura who smiled back.

'So immature.' Sasuke muttered and turned to walk out of the room. The second his back was turned you grasped your opportunity and lashed out your pillow-laden arm towards his head. It hit on target with a sufficing "thud" he turned around very slowly to glare at you, then darted forward, snatching up a pillow from the floor and trying to hit you with it. You laughed and brought your own pillow up to block the attack, only to find Naruto was closing in to your right, also clad with pillow. Luckily Sakura came to your rescue and tackled Naruto from the side. And once again the room was filled with laughing children.

Eventually Kakashi sighed, though none of you could hear it, and did some weird jutsu that made all the pillows multiply 20 fold; there were now around 80 pillows in the room & you were all struggling to stay on top of the huge mound of them.

'Right, now that I have your attention I can assume three things, firstly, Kyouri started the pillow fight, secondly that means she is better and thirdly, seeing as you all have enough energy to partake in meaningless acts of childishness you can all-' He was cut off by a huge pillow flying towards him, he ducked, only to have Sakura, Naruto & Sasuke throw one as well. He got hit by two of these and sighed again.

'If I'm still sane by the end of your training It will be a miracle.'

You laughed & he let go of the jutsu. Once you were all standing on the floor again Kakashi spoke, 'Ok, You're all on Bridge builder protection this morning including me. But seeing as it's 5 in the morning I suggest we all get some more sleep.' These last words turned more into a groan and you looked guiltily at the floor. The boys left the room & closed the door, leaving just you & Sakura, you looked at each other and both burst out laughing. After you'd recovered you both climbed into bed and fell asleep again. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all, maybe you didn't have to act so arrogant and strong all the time for them to accept you. You were so afraid of being seen as the "weak-link", the dead-weight, that it was making you into a real bitch. But, maybe they wouldn't mind if you occasionally needed one of them to come to your rescue, or if you occasionally stopped to catch your breath on a long run, maybe they really weren't as bad as you'd feared. The thought left you smiling and, needless to say, your sleep was a lot more peaceful this time.

When you awoke, again, you got up to find Sakura was already up and had left the room. 'Hmm.. That's strange' you quickly got ready & did your morning routine, only to come face to face with a clock that told you it was almost mid-day.

'Fuck! Why didn't they wake me up! Urggh!' you rushed back into the bedroom and grabbed your leg pouch. As you stood up you heard voices outside the window, maybe it was the rest of your team mates? But the voices didn't sound familiar. You walked to the window and looked down, there were two men standing outside the house. One was topless, showing off his highly muscled body & the other wore a purple jacket with a purple hat & purple hair. Neither of them looked like they were here on a friendly visit. But you weren't sure if you'd be able to fight them off, seeing as they looked like ninja.

They walked into the house. Your eyes widened in surprise & you rushed downstairs just as Tazuna's daughter's voice cut through the silence.

'No! Inari! Leave him! Take me instead. I'll do anything, just let the kid go!'

'Hn, It seems like your mum came through for you, kid. Lucky.'

'Shit' you swore under your breath as you jumped the last few steps and practically flew into the kitchen, both men turned round as you entered. You instantly knew you wouldn't be able to take both of them, or even one of them for that matter, so you opted for a new tactic.

'Mother!' you exclaimed, 'Are you ok?'

Her face betrayed only for a split second her wonder before transforming into a look of realisation, luckily the men weren't facing her. 'Yes, I'm okay. Take Inari and get out of here.'

'What are they going to do with you?'

'I'll be alright'

'Yeh, we won't hurt her, Gato just needs a hostage' the purple guy said.

'Take me instead!' Tazuna's daughter looked at you and you continued, 'Please, Inari would die anyway unless she's here to look after him. Please, I beg you, take me instead.'

They looked at you, obviously noting your lack of resemblance to Inari & his mother but you were a good actor & your all-too-real look of desperation eventually convinced them.

'Whatever, I don't care which one we take, along as it's one of them' The purple haired guy grabbed you by the arm and tied your wrists together, 'Just in case you're thinking about trying to escape' he explained. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes and allowed them to lead you out of the room, half walking & half dragged; you didn't want them to think you were too enthusiastic about being held captive.

As you walked along the sea front you noted their katanas, which made you weary at first but then you sensed their chakra, it was weak & thinly spread through their bodies, obviously they hadn't been trained very well, they just appeared strong because of their swords & clothes, or in the case of one of them, lack of clothes. Still, there was no way you could free yourself, and even if you could, you knew you couldn't take them by yourself. You'd only survived against Zabuzza because the others had been there to save your ass when your none-too-well-thought-out plans landed you in trouble.

You heard a shout from behind you and almost sighed as you realised it was Inari, you pretended to strain against the two men holding you to cry to your "younger brother".

'No! Inari, It's ok! Don't worry! Go back to mother!'

'No, I won't let you sacrifice yourself for me & my mother'

The two men looked at you for a second before full comprehension of what Inari had just said hit.

'Wha-? You little lying-!' The purple guy gasped, the other grinned and drew his sword

'Right, we have no reason to keep her alive, so...?' he looked at the purple one questioningly

'Yeh whatever. I don't care. But keep the boy alive. He'll do as a hostage'

You ducked as the guy swung his sword towards you, simultaneously pulling out a kunai from your leg pouch with your teeth. You turned round and whipped your head, letting go of the kunai which stuck upright in the ground. You jumped backwards, landing in a squat & pulling the ropes that held your wrists swiftly over the kunai to free your hands. Once your hands were free you grabbed your kunai and stood up, spinning round and backtracking a few paces, facing the two men. Well, it probably hadn't looked too good, but at least your hands were free. However, your plan had ended there, you still had no idea how you were going to get past those two. Still, refusing to show your doubt, you just grinned, the adrenaline pulsing round your body not leaving any room for fear. Unfortunately, they just grinned back at you and, you had no doubt, their confidence was probably all too real.

'Well, fancy that, She's a ninja! But where's your headband little ninja girl?'

'Where's yours?' you countered, the guy frowned and nodded to the topless one. They both charged at you, _'Shit! What now!'_ you thought desperately, okay, maybe there was still a little room for fear. Actually, make that a lot of room.

You refused to let your fear show, instead you dropped into a guard position and readied yourself to duck, roll, jump etc.

There was a huge puff of smoke and the men were stopped by two Naruto clones. You sighed in relief; you could've kissed him. Naruto turned to grin at you 'Ya know, Heroes always show up at the last minute.'

'Well that's funny, I don't see him'. You retorted, but you couldn't stop the smile breaking out on your face. Naruto rolled his eyes and laughed, throwing the two men back. He walked back towards you, 'Okay, You get the purple one, I'll get the other one.'

'Erh...' you trailed off, _I can't! He's too strong. _But you couldn't let Naruto do all the work, there was a difference between accepting help occasionally and being completely useless. You nodded and gripped your kunai tighter, tensing, ready to spring, missing the calm that used to rush over you just before a fight, back when losing a fight only meant a possible broken nose and a nick to your reputation. It was a lot harder to be calm when a single mistake would spell your death.  
>Luckily, you didn't have much time to dwell on this. In a flash of movement Naruto was running at the other one, you stood your ground and waited for the purple one to come to you, he grinned.<p>

'Guess it's you against me'

You smiled evilly back, hoping it hid your slightly shaky knees. 'I guess it is'. He smirked and ran at you, arm raised above his head ready to attack. As he neared he swung his arm down and you side stepped hurriedly. You twisted back round to kick him in the side of the knee as he flew past. You didn't even think, your body seemed to move on its own. His leg buckled and he collapsed sideways, Katana spiralling out of his hand and across the floor. You quickly ran over and picked it up, facing him again. He drew a second katana and smirked again. So, now you had a sword, but so did he, and you'd never even touched a sword before let alone fought with one! Not to mention that Katanas seemed to be his preferred weapon, which meant he was probably very good.

You circled each other, more so you could see what Naruto was doing than anything else, he was attacking the other guy with about 7-8 shadow clones, typical, and it meant that help wasn't going to come from his side; you had to survive this on your own. Swallowing your fear and taking a deep breath you tried to focus on your fight, and not your impending death. Suddenly the purple haired guy sprung at you and you only just managed to get your sword up in time to block the attack, mainly from reflexes. '_Damn it!'_ you thought to yourself, '_Got to keep focused!_' you remembered something someone had told you ages ago; "the sword can lie but the eyes rarely do". Your eyes never left his as you both struggled to gain the upper hand in the dead lock. He was a lot stronger than you though & you could feel he would eventually push you over, you gritted your teeth in annoyance, you were fairly strong for a girl of your age but no-where near the level of a ninja; that's why you'd aimed for pressure points on Zabuzza, well, that and the fact that it'd been your only option. But you were quite aware that you probably couldn't punch very hard. A sudden thought occurred to you, you quickly stepped to the side and let your sword drop, making him topple forward slightly. Without thinking you flicked your sword out from underneath his and brought it up & down onto his outstretched neck, a sudden horror filled you as you realised you were going to kill him, he saw this as well and your head was suddenly filled with the buzz of emotions which were overflowing from him.

Blood spurted from the wound and his head rolled onto the floor. Bile rose up in your mouth as you stared at the dead body, you refused the desire to look away, for if you could not face the body which you'd just killed it proved how pathetic you truly were. If you could kill then you could take the consequences of killing. It was probably worse for you than most, seeing as you'd felt everything he'd felt as he'd died, the pain, horror & desperate panic as he understood he was going to die and nothing could prevent that. That had been awful, it had felt, felt like dying. Somehow though, it made it easier to handle; you'd killed him and you were being punished for it, that was the way it should be. You shouldn't be able to just kill someone and get away with it!

You slowly turned around, you face unreadable, and stared at the topless guy who took one look at the body on the floor and glanced up at you again.

'Get lost' you spat, the guy tuned tail and fled.

Naruto was still staring at you, astounded.

'Get going, I'll meet you there' you said after awhile, walking forward and picking up the head.

'What are you going to do?' his voice was shaking

'Bury the body, that's the least I can do, seeing as I killed him' you said every word as an accusation to yourself. You didn't see Naruto go but you felt his presence beginning to lessen as he got further away. You walked back over to the body & picked that up as well, ignoring the blood that still flowed freely from it. Once you were off the main path you pulled out a kunai and began to dig as best you could with it & your hands. This took you what felt like hours but when there was a deep enough hole you carefully laid the body inside & rested the head where it should be, laying his two swords over him, crossing at his chest. You then moved all the earth back on top of him, your fingers scrabbling through the dirt. You didn't know his name but you marked the place above his head with a rock & scratched "R.I.P" into it with your kunai. You stood up, feeling a strange, almost alien sense of calm, you'd given him a proper burial (or as best as you could do) and so you set off in the direction on the bridge.


	17. Survival, somehow

When you first arrived the mist was so thick you couldn't see anything more than the huge structure of ice. But then you switched to your vision and, although it was blurry, due to the mist being infused with chakra, you could still make out Kakashi, Sakura & Tazuna, although Zabuzza was no-where to be seen. You jumped down next to Kakashi.

'Kyouri! You're just in ti-' he stopped short as he noticed the blood on your clothes

'Don't ask, the blood's not mine'

He looked at you doubtfully but continued, 'I need you to go help Naruto & Sasuke, they're stuck in that ice thing.' He paused, 'But be careful, if it gets too dangerous then get out and let them deal with it, okay?' His words hurt; it laid out, clear as day, that you were weaker than them, that you'd be the one to falter, the one who'd need to run away. But you also knew he was right; you would be the one that would need to run away. So you nodded your head and jumped off.  
>You climbed on to the top of the ice and looked through one of the cracks. You saw Naruto &amp; Sasuke inside, both had many cuts, but the wounds all looked thankfully small. Then you remembered that mist assassin guy -who wasn't really a mist assassin- used senbon! They'd be small enough to make those cuts. But why hadn't he killed them? If you'd heard correctly he'd be able to hit a vital point with a senbon from miles away. Suddenly you felt something grab your foot and you looked down to see his hand extending out of the ice, your vision switched involuntarily.<p>

'Shit!' you exclaimed, Naruto & Sasuke looked up & both threw kunai at the guy. Both hit on target. The guy didn't let go of you but pulled you in, you lost your balance and fell through the gap, you gritted your teeth in anticipation for your landing. Only to find yourself being caught by a pair of surprisingly strong arms & your vision switched back, Sasuke put you down.

'Thanks' you turned to him, trying not to sound resentful that he'd saved you.

'No problem'

You changed your eyes back to your chakra vision and looked around, but all the mirrors were made of chakra so you couldn't see which one he was hiding in.

'Naruto, clones' Sasuke said, Naruto made about 5 clones which all jumped at the mirrors. You saw a blur of colour out of the corner of your eye and swung you head round in time to see a bright peachy blue colour. That must be the mist ninja! A second later you felt thousands of tiny needles slicing into your skin, you winced and gasped in surprise and pain but stood your ground, bringing your arms up above your head in a cross shape, palms facing inwards so to protect the veins on your wrists.

'Again' Sasuke said, Naruto made more clones, this time you held a kunai in your hands, it just so happened that where the boy jumped out of was one of the mirrors that was right in front of you, you threw the kunai and it glanced off his ankle, although you'd been aiming for his head, Damn he was fast! At the same time as you'd tried to hit him with the kunai Sasuke had shot at him with a fire ball. Sasuke's fire ball hit him straight in the chest. The boy dropped to the floor and you were quick to rush over & pin his arms to his sides, holding a kunai to his neck. You weren't just going to stand there and get hit. You weren't going to let Naruto and Sasuke do all the work. You saw the worried look on Naruto's face so you reassured him.

'Don't worry Naruto. I'm not going to kill him unless I absolutely have to, It's not exactly the most pleasant thing in the world.' You chose your words carefully, in case they spark some emotional response, but you still didn't feel anything about killing that guy.

Naruto's face relaxed but now Sasuke looked at you anxiously, you saw him scrutinize the blood on your clothes and you sighed, yet more explaining to do, but now was not the time.

Suddenly you were thrown off & before you knew what was happening Sasuke was standing in front of you, you got up quickly.

'Thanks, that's the third time you've had to save my life.' You admitted, both thankful and annoyed. You had to pay attention! Keep your mind focussed!

The boy jumped into the air again and Sasuke spoke

'That boy is Haku, He's in league with Zabuzza'

You nodded your head although he couldn't see.

You grabbed another kunai and searched among the blue to find a brighter patch. Abruptly Sasuke's chakra disappeared from in front of you and you pivoted round, your vision switching back to normal, to see him standing in front of Naruto with numerous senbon sticking in him. He fell to the floor and you rushed forward to catch him, only to find Naruto already had.

'Naruto, you loser..' were his last words. Naruto collapsed to the floor, his head bent. Your vision switched as if in warning to the coming danger, for a strange red chakra was filling Naruto, supplied by some unseen force. It bubbled threateningly inside him. You backed away, this was unlike any chakra you'd ever seen before & Naruto had a murderous glint in his eyes. In desperation to find some spark of the real Naruto you searched inside his head, only to meet a strange conscious who grabbed hold of your mind. You struggled against it but it held on tightly, speaking into your mind.

'So long since I've seen such a promising young shinobi, but you do not yet know the full extent of your powers, such a shame. Maybe I should enlighten you... but no, that would ruin all the fun. Chances are, your powers will kill you before we meet again. But if you survive, well, then we'll have another little talk.'

You gritted your teeth, having heard more than enough you focused your chakra and sent it along the link that connected your thoughts to the thing, you structured it into a point and thrust it deep into his mind -For it had spoken in a male voice-. He snarled and let go, you withdrew imeditally but not before you caught sense -(like we would catch sight)- of a glimmer of Naruto.

Naruto exploded in a blast of chakra which burned so bright you had to switch back to normal vision so as to avoid being blinded. The chakra consumed the ice mirrors & exposed Haku. Naruto charged at him.

'That's it' the boy whispered 'Come & kill me. I have outlived my usefulness.'

You narrowed your eyes but there was no way of stopping Naruto now, only he could do that, by breaking through the thing that had control of his mind. And, shockingly, he did. He stopped, his hand a millimetre away from the boys face.

'Do you not want to take revenge on the death of your friend, or maybe he didn't mean as much to you?' When Haku spoke his voice was void of all emotion.

'No, revenge does not solve anything. Your death will not bring back Sasuke.'

Haku looked at him for awhile and began to speak again but you felt as though you were intruding, this talk of death and loyalty, and the "way of the ninja" didn't mean much to you, you still didn't understand the ninja world, or the state of mind they had to have to survive this. You looked at Sasuke on the floor and felt a sadness well up inside of you. He'd been an arrogant know-it-all, but you could certainly relate to that, and he'd been a nice guy on the inside, hell, he'd saved your life enough times. You felt like crying, but couldn't. You stood up and took one last look at Naruto & Haku before running off to help Kakashi & Sakura.

When you got there you saw Zabuzza being held by a mountain of dogs, as you came into view you raised an eyebrow.

'Okay, I'm not going to bother asking' you said, Kakashi smirked slightly but turned his gaze back to Zabuzza.

'Any last words? Demon of the hidden mist?'

'I have a few' you said, Kakashi looked at you questioningly but you ignored him and walked in front of Zabuzza

'Go on then, speak girl'

'That boy, Haku. Just out of interest, how much did he mean to you?' After your dream, the idea of someone being alone suddenly meant so much more to you than it ever had before. The thought of anyone going through that in real life, having absolutely no-one that cared about them, disgusted you. Zabuzza seemed to be a man without emotion, but Haku had cared for him; he'd died protecting him, Zabuzza needed to know that.

'Nothing, he was merely a tool. He was like a shuriken, just a weapon to be used.'

You kept your face emotionless as you spoke, 'So If I said he'd just died what would you say?'

'I'd say you were a liar, No-one can match Haku's skill'

'Really, if only you could turn round now. He's about to be killed by the boy you said was a pathetic excuse for a ninja & an embarrassment. If what you said was true, then what does that make Haku?'

'You lie girl.'

'Do I really? Well then, I just wanted to let you know. Let you know that Haku gave his life to save you, and yet you called him a "tool", "just a weapon to be used."' You couldn't hide the look of disgust on your face, but it seemed you'd hit a chord somewhere deep within him.

Zabuzza growled and strained against the dogs holding him but couldn't break free, you stepped back and Kakashi spoke

'Okay, This is where it ends for you Zabuzza. But not from my sharingan, no, now you have the honour of seeing my own technique.' He did some handsigns & a ball of blue chakra formed in his hands. Whoa; you could see the chakra without your vision, what kind of technique was that? You stepped further back, towards Sakura and watched as Kakashi ran at Zabuzza, wondering how you were going to tell her that Sasuke was dead. Kakashi's advance was stopped short by Haku, his hand had buried into the boy's flesh, you winced but turned to Sakura

'Urh, Sakura. I'm not sure how to tell you this but,..' you paused and she looked at you expectantly, 'Sasuke's dead' you admitted with a sigh. Best to get it over with; there was no point trying to sugar-coat it, she deserved the honest truth, he was dead. Her eyes widened in shock & she visibly shook, 'I'll stay with Tazuna, Go' she nodded her head and ran off. You heard Tazuna clear his throat and you turned your head slightly to face him, but kept your eyes on Kakashi, Haku & Zabuzza.

'Surely you want to go over there too?'

'Of course I do, but someone has to look after you & Sakura needs to see him more than I do.'

He nodded his head but continued, 'If I went over with you, that would be ok wouldn't it?' You thought about it and nodded, 'Well, let's go.' you nodded again and set off, walking next to Tazuna but keeping him furthest away from Zabuzza.

'Thank you.' You said to him eventually, Tazuna just shrugged and smiled.  
>As you neared Sasuke's body you saw Sakura collapsed over it, sobbing. Naruto was standing there as well, looking lost. You walked over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder.<p>

'Naruto, come on. Don't blame yourself for this.'

'But, I could have stopped him! If I hadn't been there Sasuke wouldn't be dead! And I couldn't kill that stupid kid! Even though I had my chance, If that had been you you'd have been able to do it, you'd have been able to avenge Sasuke, but I couldn't! Because I'm weak!'

You could have laughed, Naruto thought he was weaker than you? You'd been shitting yourself the entire time. 'No Naruto, you're not weak. Being able to kill doesn't make you strong and it's certainly not something I'm proud of.' You sighed and smiled at him, 'This morning, I'd have thought that I'd rather die than kill someone, but apparently that's not true. I killed someone and I can't reverse that and I know that, being a ninja, I will probably have to kill many more times to survive, & I know I will. But I don't ever want that to become automatic or easy. If it becomes easy to kill someone then you are no longer properly human. You are not weak because you didn't kill him, if anything you are stronger for not killing him. You did the right thing.' you smiled at him encouragingly and he returned it with his own small smile, though it showed more pain than anything else. You dropped your hand and walked over to Sakura, you kneeled down next to her, unsure of what to say. A sudden sense of danger reached you and you stood up, seeing a huge group on ninja on the edge of the bridge. Your eyes darted back and forth between Sasuke and Kakashi. You closed your eyes and made a decision. Steeling yourself for what was to come, you ran back over, leaving Tazuna where he was. At the front of the ninjas was a small fat man with grey spiky hair, who was standing behind the dead form of Haku lying on the floor.

'Gato, what is this? I don't understand.' Zabuzza said

'Well, there's been a slight change in plan, according to this plan you die right here, on this bridge; You're too expensive, so I've decided to cancel our agreement. Of course, even these thugs I brought with me cost something so if you wouldn't mind taking a few of them down before you die, I'd appreciate it.'

'Well well Kakashi, It would seem our fight is at an end. As I am no longer employed by Gato then I have no fight with you over the bridge builder.' Zabuzza said, his voice a monotone

'So it would seem' Kakashi replied

Gato spoke again, 'That reminds me little punk' he began, looking down at Haku, 'You grabbed me & almost broke my arm, I've been meaning to repay you' He lifted his arm as if to strike Haku with his walking stick, your lip curled in disgust as the wood struck hard against his motionless face.

'That's sick! You coward.' You yelled, Gato just looked at you and laughed

'That's rich, coming from the little girl hiding behind her sensei.'

You gritted your teeth in annoyance but had no reply.

Naruto started yelling and ran forward before you could stop him, luckily Kakashi was quicker and grabbed him before he could get himself killed.

'Stop! Use your head. Even if one of my team seems determined to put themselves on everyone's death list I don't want the rest of my team doing it!'

You grinned at his words, despite the situation.

'Well what about you Zabuzza? You going to let him do that!' Naruto shouted.

'Be quiet you fool, Haku's dead, what does it matter?'

'You mean you can just stand there and watch him get treated like he's nothing! You and Haku were together for years! Doesn't that mean anything to you!'

'You don't understand the way of shinobi little kid. I merely used him, as Gato used me. But now it's over. The loss of his strength & skill, yes, that means something to me. But the boy? Nothing.'

'If you mean that you're an even bigger jerk than I thought!'

'Calm down Naruto, he's not the enemy. At least, not right now.' Kakashi tried to reason.

'SHUT UP! That's not the point!' Naruto raged, tears pouring from his eyes, you watched this, your face impassive, but inside, you felt a sudden softening towards Naruto, he wasn't the rude, attention-seeking boy you'd thought. He might be tactless occasionally, but his heart was in the right place. 'You ungrateful, hateful, bastard! After everything he did for you. He lived for you! He gave up his dreams for you! And that means nothing to you? He was sacrificing everything for you. You never felt anything for him? He threw his life away! And for what? You & your stupid dream! And now you just toss him aside as if he was nothing? Just another broken tool? Man that's so wrong.'

'You talk too much' Zabuzza said but you noticed the drops of water landing on the floor, Was he? Was he crying? 'Your words cut deep, deeper than any sword. While he fought you his heart was breaking in two; you see Haku was always too nice & too soft. He felt pain & sympathy for others, and now, damn him! I feel them too!' he tore the wrappings off from around his mouth to reveal a normal face, no monster, just a human. 'What? You're so shocked to find that I'm human? Even shinobi are human, despite their resemblance to machines. No matter how hard we try to escape that fact, in the end we are all human & nothing can ever change that. Now boy, give me a kunai.'

Naruto opened his leg pouch and produced a kunai, flinging it towards Zabuzza who caught it in his teeth seeing as his arms were now apparently useless.

He ran towards Gato & his men, Gato imeditally retreated into the swarm of ninja who grinned in expectation then uncertainty & finally, in fear. He charged through them, killing them with one flick of his head, he headed determinedly towards Gato, not stopping despite the weapons which were stuck into him. He reached Gato at last and charged head straight into him, only to have 8 or 10 swords stuck into his back. Gato scrambled out from underneath him, terror clear on his face.

'You crazy fool. If you're so eager to join your friend go ahead, but you're not taking me with you!'

'I won't be joining Haku, where he's gone I cannot follow. You & me, we're both going to the other place where fire will consume us, I hear that place is filled with demons so I should fit right in, but you! You're in for a painful eternity!' With this he swung round, slicing Gato repeatedly with the kunai he still held in his mouth and throwing him into the sea below.

The huge crowd of ninjas parted before him as he turned round and started to walk back towards Haku, he fell to his knees before a few steps and looked up towards the boy's fallen body, he said some words that you couldn't hear & slumped to the floor.

For awhile all was quiet until Kakashi broke the silence, talking to Naruto;

'Don't turn away, When you live like a warrior this is how it ends. If you never learn to accept death then you will never become a shinobi.'

You heard a shout of delight from Sakura, you turned round to see Sasuke sitting up, you smiled. At least that was one less dead. You turned to Naruto and spoke the same time Sakura shouted,

'Naruto! Look, Sasuke's alright' Sasuke raised an arm & a genuine smile broke out on Naruto's face,

'Well Well, Will wonders never cease?' Kakashi said, also turning round slightly

'It sure seems like a miracle. All we need now is for some huge group of people to deal with this lot.' you replied, indicating the group of ninja who were beginning to regain their confidence,

'Mm'

'Hey! YooHoo!' a harsh voice said from the crowd of ninja 'Don't go getting too comfortable, who's going to pay us now that Gato's gone? We'll just have to go see what they've got in the land of waves!'

'Not good' Kakashi stated

'Come on Kakashi sensei! You must have a jutsu that can take care of this group of losers!' Naruto shouted

'Not right now, I've used up too much chakra'

'GET 'EM BOYS!' The shout came from the ninja, you readied yourself to take down as many as possible, but an arrow landed a second away from the first guy, you all spun round to see Inari & the rest of the village all laden with weapons of various sorts & sizes

'If you want to get to our village you're going to have to go through us first!' they cried

'Well Kyouri, It seems like miracles do happen' Kakashi said,

'So it would appear.' You laughed from relief.

'Well I'm not missing out on all the fun! Shadow clone jutsu!' Naruto yelled, creating another 5-6 Narutos.

'Well, I guess I have enough chakra to help out as well' Kakashi admitted, 'Shadow clone jutsu, Kakashi style!' about 50 Kakashis appeared. The ninja backed away & ran off the side of the bridge, most landing in a boat but many disappeared into the waters of the sea. Once they were all gone Kakashi & Naruto released their techniques and turned back to the crowd.

'Victory!' Inari yelled, everyone crowded round Inari & Tazuna but you saw Kakashi walk off towards Zabuzza, you followed him,

'Sounds like it's over' Zabuzza whispered

'Yeh'

'Kakashi, I have a favour to ask, Take me to him. I need to see him one last time.'

Kakashi nodded, knowing who he meant, he began to pull out the swords & weapons which were stuck into him, you bent down & helped, throwing them aside & wiping your blood covered hands onto your blood covered clothes instead.

Kakashi picked him up with apparent ease & carried him over to Haku's body, lying him down next to it. You walked with him, as the snow began to fall silently, bringing goose bumps to your skin although you didn't feel it. You watched as Zabuzza slowly extended a hand to touch Haku on the cheek & realised everything and gone quiet. You walked back towards where Naruto, Sasuke & Sakura were standing.

'Thank you, Kakashi' Kakashi nodded and turned to walk away. Eventually he spoke again though his words were only for Haku, 'You were always besides me, the least I can do is be beside you at the end. I know I cannot but I wish I could go to where you have gone, how I wish I could join you there. Haku...' his voice trailed off and you all stopped and watched him slowly dieing

'He told me, where he came from It was always snowing, all the time' Naruto sobbed, tears still running down his face

'You never know Zabuzza, you might just join him there.'

As you walked back to the burial grounds, where you would bury Zabuzza & Haku, it was still snowing & a light coating of white covered the ground where you stepped. Kakashi was walking in front, carrying Zabuzza & Haku, Naruto was walking behind, then Sasuke & Sakura, then, finally, you. You were deep in thought over whether someone might have wished they could have been with the purple guy that you'd killed, to be with him at the end. He was a rouge ninja, but so was Zabuzza & Haku & they still had someone they both treasured & loved, what if you'd just ruined some other person's life by taking away their loved one? Your mind was filled with regrets, so much so that you couldn't think of anything else. Your head was tilted downwards as you walked, hair forming curtains around your face, so you didn't notice that Sasuke had stopped & was standing a few paces away until he spoke.

'Kyouri?'

Your head snapped up & you stopped short, trying not to crash into him.

'Are you ok?'

You nodded your head although you weren't.

'You look cold' it was a statement not question.

'Really? I can't feel it.'

'Who's blood is this? Is it yours?' he asked, indicating the blood on your clothes, you shook your head and answered simply, "No" unwilling to say more.

He gave you a sympathetic smile and turned to catch up with the others. You kept walking at a steady pace, making no effort to catch up with everyone else. You stopped again as you realised the surroundings were getting increasingly familiar, you looked around the white covered landscape and saw it, the bush behind which you had buried the purple guy. You walked over to it and saw the stone & the slight mound which showed his body was there. You sighed, that was the last act which separated you from your previous life & previous friends; you knew you'd never be able to talk to them normally again, knowing that you'd killed someone, it'd be like you were lying to them, keeping something secret, which of course you would be, but if they found out you'd killed someone they'd be too scared to be your friends anymore. This was what had finally torn you apart from any hopes of one day returning to your old life, you were a shinobi now; a killing machine.

You walked on & after a few minutes realised you had no idea where you were going but you didn't stop, you just kept walking straight along the path, you'd find somewhere eventually.

The sun was shining and the snow beginning to melt before you felt another presence nearby, you looked up & to the side was Kakashi, he looked at you questioningly.

'I got lost' you lied feebly

'When you were following us? I find it hard to picture how.'

'Whatever' you continued walking but he grabbed you arm, not hard, but strong enough to stop you from pulling out of his grasp easily.

'The house is this way, & while we walk you can tell me who's blood that is.

You groaned but walked obediently in the right direction,

'Well?' Kakashi pestered after awhile

'It's another ninja's. One of Gato's henchmen'

'Hm, that explains a lot. Tell me everything.'

So you did, from seeing the two men out of the window to burying the guy & marking his grave with a stone. He stayed silent throughout & only nodded at the end. Seeing as you were not required to talk anymore you didn't & you both continued the rest of the journey in silence.

The next morning as you stood ready to depart on your trek back home, feeling refreshed, clean & slightly less guilty. Tazuna & Inari & the rest of the village were there to wave you goodbye.

'I can't tell you how much we're going to miss you' Tazuna said smiling

'Do be careful' his daughter added

'Thank you, for everything' Kakashi replied

'Now now. Don't get all teary eyed, we'll come back and visit real soon!' Naruto put in just for good measure but Inari's eyes began to fill with tears anyway

'You swear you will?'

'Of course' you looked at Naruto to see he was trying not to cry as well, 'You know Inari, It's alright to cry if you want, there's nothing wrong with that.'

'Who says I want to cry? And if there's nothing wrong with it you go on and cry!' his voice broke at the end & when Naruto responded his voice was strained in his desperate (and rather pathetic) attempt not to cry.

'No, you first' They stared at each other for a second before Naruto turned round, 'Forget it' the moment Inari couldn't see, tears streamed from Naruto's eyes, you exchanged an exasperated glance with Sakura & rolled your eyes.

You all started to walk across the newly finished bridge.

'Haha! As soon as we get back I'm gonna get Iruka-sensei to buy my a whole mess of ramen to celebrate my first real successful mission!' Naruto announced gleefully

'Hey Sasuke, you wanna do something or hang out once we get back to the village?' Sakura asked

'Erh, No thanks' he replied

'I'll do something with you Sakura!' Naruto replied eagerly

'Ergh! No-way!'

You smiled and continued walking back home, somehow life would still continue normally despite everything you'd all been through in the last few days; Naruto would still be unimaginably annoying, Sasuke would still think he was better than everyone else, Sakura would still be absolutely boy mad, Kakashi would still spend his time being late & You'd still spend your time making fun of all of them. Yeh, maybe life wasn't so bad after all.


	18. Wrong Decisions

When you first arrived back at the village you all had to report to the Hokage's office to relate the details of the trip. Once Kakashi had told him everything that had happened the hokage sighed

'Typical, the one C mission I send a genin team on ends up being one that should have been classed as A or S rank.'

You ventured a question, 'So on the records, what will this mission's rank be recorded as?'

'Ah! Well seeing as you did survive it you might as well take the credit, it will be marked down as A.' The hokage replied, 'Though don't go bragging about that.' he warned with a smile, you nodded your head & you all left the office, It was now quite late and you all went your separate ways home.

You were walking down the streets when you saw a group of your old school friends, you didn't have the energy to face them now so you slipped through an alleyway to avoid them. You kept on walking until you realised your mistake, you made to swirl round but it was too late, they had your arms pinned behind your back & a kunai to your throat like normal.

'Hello again' his voice said, 'What information have you collected for me?'

'What do you want to know?' you replied, your voice a monotone.

'Who's on your team first of all'

'Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke & Hatake Kakashi.'

'Hmm, tell me about Kakashi, is it true that he has the sharingan eye?'

'Huh? What's that? I know he keeps one of his eyes covered but I don't know anything about the sharingan or whatever.' you lied, there was no-way he could know how much you knew, and you really didn't want to betray your new team mates. God damnit! You cared about them, you didn't want them to get hurt.

'Really? Well tell me about the Uzumaki kid, I know you can sense chakra, have you noticed anything weird about his?'

'No, well, he has quite a large amount for his age but nothing so extraordinary for it to be notable really.'

'And what about your missions? What missions have you been on?'

'Usual genin stuff, rescuing cats, helping old ladies trim their garden, baby sitting etc.'

He sighed, sounding almost genuinely upset. 'A lie. I'm sorry, but you've just forfeited your family's lives.' your eyes widened in shock and horror as he shoved you forward.

'No! Wait! WAIT!' You yelled as you scrambled to your feet, only to find he was gone, you swore and ran off in the direction of your house, your legs running faster than they ever had in your whole life. What had you _done_! He couldn't be serious! He wasn't really going to kill your family. He was just scaring you, that was all, wasn't it!

You didn't stop once you reached the familiar building, but charged right through the open door,

'FATHER! REN! HITOMI!' You called into the darkness as you thundered up the stairs, you threw open the door and practically fell inside, only to come face to face with the headless bodies of your family. You imeditally backed away in fear then stopped & forced yourself not to run out of the room. Your limbs went weak. You were shivering. The world ceased to make sense.

Tears began to roll out your eyes & it seemed they would flood the room. You walked forward, hand out-stretched but collapsed to your knees before you'd gone more than a few steps. You retched, spewing empty, stinking bile onto the floor. The smell of blood was so thick in the air, as if it was actively trying to choke you.

You looked around the room in a desperate attempt to prove this was all a bad dream, or even just a genjutsu, anything, anything at all that would mean your family was still alive. Unfortunately your raving eyes only fell upon the limp forms of your cats, each pinned to the wall via a kunai through their chests. You felt sick & scared, so, so scared. You just wanted this nightmare to end, wanted this all to go away. Wanted to see your family just one last time. Your laughing little sister, your annoying brother, your awkward but caring Dad. Just one last time, was that so much to ask? So fucking much! And suddenly, you knew how. You ripped a kunai knife from your leg pouch and held it against your wrist, you ran the blade lightly over the skin at first, bringing it up to your face to inhale its metallic scent, then again, harder this time so blood gushed from the wound, you felt the pain but it didn't distract from the pain of losing your family. The kunai fell from your hand and your head filled with a confused buzz of thoughts and emotions, Fear, misery, anger. But most of all, guilt; the fact that you could have saved your family, that they could all still be alive now if you hadn't been so stupid, so fucking stupid! You felt sick & disgusted at yourself, you hated yourself for letting this happen to them, the whole reason you had become a ninja was to try to prevent this.

'Urgh' you moaned as you sank to the floor, your vision blacking out against a void of empty wishes which stretched out for miles around you.


End file.
